Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

Oral Answers to Questions — TURKISH PRISONERS OF WAR.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 1.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs how many Turkish prisoners of war are still held captive in Palestine and Egypt respectively; why they have not been repatriated; and what is the monthly cost of maintaining these prisoners?

The SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Sir Laming Worthington-Evans): I have been asked to answer this question. According to the latest returns there were 61 Turkish prisoners of war in Egypt and Palestine awaiting repatriation to Turkey. With the exception possibly of a few who are not yet fit to travel, all are about to be embarked for Constantinople

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH ARMY.

EX-TEMPORARY OFFICERS.

Mr. TREVELYAN THOMSON: 5.
asked the Secretary of State for War why, if an ex-temporary lieut.-colonel who, commanded a battalion in the field in France wishes to re-enter the Army, he can only do so as a second lieutenant; and will he take steps to modify the regulations in favour of the ex-temporary officer?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: The hon. Member is under a misapprehension. Ex-temporary lieut.-colonels who commanded units in the field for a continuous period of not less than six months or for an aggregate of not less than nine months are being granted permanent regular commissions in the rank of captain. The details of the scheme for granting regular
commissions to temporary and other-officers have already been published and I will send the hon. Gentleman a copy.

MENTION IN DESPATCHES (CERTIFICATES).

Lieut.-Colonel CAMPION: 6.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether all the certificates for mentions in dispatches during the late War have now been issued?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: There are approximately 17,000 certificates, for mentions in despatches still to be issued, and it is anticipated that the work will be completed by the end of April next.

VICTORY MEDALS.

Major COHEN: 7.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether last summer half a million Victory medals were scrapped owing to defective workman ship; whether some millions of the war medals are being held up to be issued with the Victory medals; and whether, if this is so, he will give instructions for the war medals to be issued forthwith so that it will be possible for at least one medal to be issued in the lifetime of a recipient?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Approximately 550,000 Victory medals were melted up owing to a change of design which it was found necessary to carry out. No British war medals have been held up for issue with the Victory medals, and nearly two millions have already been despatched.

Major COHEN: 8.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that the metal of which the Victory medal is made tarnishes and becomes iridescent during the first few weeks of its existence; and whether, as it seems impossible to issue a satisfactory Victory medal, it would be better to abandon the idea of having such a medal altogether?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: It has recently been found that some of the-Victory medals have become iridescent, and the cause is at present under investigation. Instructions have been given to suspend the issue of any iridescent medals.

OFFICERS (WAR OFFICE).

Colonel NEWMAN: 12
asked the-Secretary of State for War (1) how many officers were employed in the War Office
on 1st July, 1914, and 31st January, 1921, respectively, and in which Departments the officers are now employed; and whether each Department or sub-Department was in existence on 1st August, 1914;
(2) whether he has taken the opportunity of comparing, by a perusal of the official Army Lists of August, 1914, and of January, 1921, the number of officers employed at the War Office on the two dates in question; and has he considered the possibility of replacing a large number of the officers now employed by clerks?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: The number of officers employed in the War Office in August, 1914, was 147, and on 1st February, 1921, was 333. I will circulate a statement showing the Departments and sub-Departments in which the officers are now employed. With the ex-

STATEMENT showing the number of Officers employed at the War Office in August, 1914, and February, 1921.


Department.
Number of Officers.


February, 1921.
August, 1914.


Military Secretary
…
…
13
2


Cief of the Imperial General Staff
…
…
1
1


puty Chief of the Imperial General Staff
…
…
1
—


Assistants
…
…
2
—


Directorate of Military Operations
…
…
27
37


Directorate of Staff Duties
…
…
33
9


Directorate of Military Intelligence
…
…
38
—


Directorate of Military Training
…
…
—
17


Adjutant General
…
…
1
1


Directorate of Recruiting and Organisation
…
…
—
8


Directorate of Organisation
…
…
19
—


Directorate of Personal Services
…
…
39
8


Directorate of Mobilisation
…
…
—
3


Directorate of Mobilisation and Recruiting
…
…
15
—


Directorate of Army Medical Services
…
…
17
6


Quarter-Master General
…
…
1
1


Deputy Quarter-Master General
…
…
1
—


Directorate of Transport and Movements
…
…
—
5


Directorate of Movements and Quartering
…
…
16
—


Directorate of Remounts
…
…
4
3


Directorate of Supplies and Quartering
…
…
—
4


Directorate of Supplies and Transport
…
…
22
—


Directorate of Equipment and Ordnance Stores
…
…
11
6


Directorate of Army Veterinary Services
…
…
3
2


Directorate of Surplus Stores and Salvage*
…
…
8
—


Directorate of Canteens*
…
…
3
—


Master General of the Ordnance
…
…
1
1


Directorate of Artillery
…
…
28
9


Directorate of Fortifications and Works
…
…
24
14


Directorate of the Territorial Force
…
…
5
4


Directorate of Military Aeronautics
…
…
—
6


* Not in existence on 1st August, 1914.

ception of two sub-Departments, employing 11 officers, all the Departments and sub-Departments were in existence on 1st August, 1914. The possibility of reducing the number of officers employed is constantly receiving attention, and considerable reductions have been, and are being, made. The work upon which staff officers are employed is not such as can be done by clerks, and the suggestion made by the hon. and gallant Member is therefore not practicable.

Colonel NEWMAN: Does that mean that we cannot afford any greater reduction in the near future?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: No, that is not at all what I said. What I said was that reductions had been and were being made.

The following is the statement referred to:

Colonel NEWMAN: 13.
asked the Secretary of State for War how many temporary officers are still employed in the War Office or in the commands; and when is it proposed to discontinue their employment?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: The number of non-Regular officers now serving with the Army, both at home and abroad, and paid for under War Office Votes is approximately 4,000. Of this number, 42 are serving in the War Office. Reductions are being carried out as rapidly as circumstances permit.

EXPEDITIONARY FORCE CANTEENS.

Major MACKENZIE WOOD: 15.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been drawn to a statement by Sir Alexander Prince, late Controller of the Expeditionary Force canteens, that £7,000,000, and not £2,000,000, as stated by the War Office, was paid back to troops in the shape of rebates from the Expeditionary Force canteen profits, and to the further statement by the auditors that the War Office were in error in alleging that the final balance-sheet rendered by the Expeditionary Force canteen contained no provision for losses anticipated on the realisation of the unsold stock; which of the conflicting statements is correct; and whether he will be able to make a full statement with regard to the disposal of the Expeditionary Force canteen profits?

Sir A. WILLIAMSON (Parliamentary Secretary, War Office): My attention has been drawn to the statements to which the hon. and gallant Member refers. The sum of £7,000,000, I am informed, included discounts and rebates granted by the Expeditionary Force Canteens and Navy and Army Canteen Board, amounting to about £2,000,000 and £5,000,000 respectively. Perhaps I may be permitted to state that the Finance Department of the War Office has nothing to do with the finance of the two canteen organisations. When the closing of the business of the Expeditionary Force canteens was undertaken by the Navy and Army Canteen Board, the terms of the arrangement, approved by the Army Council, provided that a reserve should be made by Expeditionary Force canteens to reimburse the Navy and Army Canteen Board should the winding up of the former's undertaking involve a loss. The
Expeditionary Force canteens, in presenting their interim report, stated that no such provision had been made in the accounts. As I am informed that these losses will be considerable, publication of accounts until final results are ascertained would be misleading. Nevertheless, there is every reason to believe that the excellent work done by the two canteen organisations during the War will result in a very substantial credit balance. The amount to be finally handed over can only be ascertained when the liquidation of the Expeditionary Force canteens is completed, and the surplus stocks still held by the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes have been realised. The amount already handed over to the United Services Fund on account is about £3,049,000 in cash and £1,000,000 of Funding Loan. In view of the interest of the United Services Fund, the Dominions, India, Navy, Army and Air Force in the final apportionment of these moneys, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has decided to appoint a small and entirely independent Committee, under the Chairmanship of the hon. Member for the Ecclesall Division of Sheffield (Sir Samuel Roberts), to consider and advise him upon the subject generally.

Major WOOD: Was not the balance sheet presented by the auditor certified as a final balance sheet, and why is it described now as an interim balance sheet?

Sir A. WILLIAMSON: There was no proper certificate for the accounts. There was no ordinary and usual certificate such as is the custom with accounts. The accountants themselves made the accounts. There was no independent audit.

Major WOOD: The auditors to whom I have directed attention in my question say they presented a final balance sheet and made full provision for the depreciation in the stock.

Sir A. WILLIAMSON: I am informed that they made full provision for depreciation of stock which they retained to realise, but not for the stock which they handed over to the Navy and Army Canteen Board to realise.

Major WOOD: Will the right hon. Gentleman publish the balance sheet that has been presented?

Sir A. WILLIAMSON: The Committee will have the whole of these matters put before them, and when we have received their Report we will consider that.

Major WOOD: Meanwhile will no money be disbursed?

Sir A. WILLIAMSON: I cannot promise that, because the United Services Fund is constantly making application for money for the various schemes which it has in hand, and it would be unwise and unreasonable to retain money belonging to the United Services Fund if it is not necessary to do so.

Sir D. MACLEAN: In view of the very large amount of publicity which has been given to this matter in the Press, will my right hon. Friend undertake that this Committee shall be set up immediately; and am I right in assuming that it will have full power to send for persons and documents in the usual way, and that at the earliest possible moment complete publicity will be given to the whole of this matter so that the public may know and the large amount of misunderstanding and misrepresentation may be finally dispelled?

Sir A. WILLIAMSON: The whole object in appointing this entirely independent body, which does not represent either the War Office or the United Services Fund, was that they might give an unbiassed account of the position, and guide the War Office in the distribution of these moneys.

TERRITORIAL ARMY (RECRUITS).

Captain TUDOR-REES: 17.
asked the Secretary of State for War the total number of recruits enrolled to date in the Territorial Army; and how many more are required to complete the establishment?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: The total number of recruits enlisted for the Territorial Force, up to 12th February, was 83,263, and in addition 3,664 men have been registered but not yet attested. The establishment of the force is approximately 224,000.

MOTOR LORRIES, SUBSIDY.

Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSON: 18.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether there is a scheme in his Department for the subsidy of motor lorries in the event of their being required for purposes of war in the future?

Sir A. WILLIAMSON: A scheme for the subsidy of mechanical transport vehicles registered for use in the event of mobilisation is at present under consideration.

Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: Can the right hon. Gentleman say if it has already been decided that the subsidy shall be £40 per lorry per annum, and what the total cost will be?

Sir A. WILLIAMSON: I am not able to answer that without notice.

Lieut.-Colonel J. WARD: Is it not possible to register these lorries and use them in case of emergency without any subsidy?

Sir A. WILLIAMSON: I would refer to the answer I have just given, and that is that the subsidy is under consideration.

Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: > Before the Committee which is looking into the matter come to any decision, will this House be given any opportunity to consider it?

Sir A. WILLIAMSON: If the hon. Member will put down a question, I will ascertain.

Mr. WATERSON: Would it not be advisable to dispense with war and remove the subsidy?

WAR MEDAL CLASPS.

Lieut.-Colonel DALRYMPLE WHITE: 23.
asked the Secretary of State for War if the list of clasps to the war medal has been completed; if so, whether he will state what clasps have been settled upon; and, if not completed, if he will state the reasons for the long delay in arriving at a conclusion?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: The question of the issue[...] of battle clasps for the British war medal has been most carefully examined, both Departmentally and by a Committee specially appointed for the purpose, but a definite decision has not yet been reached. The delay in arriving at a conclusion is due to the difficulty of settling the principles on which separate clasps should be awarded; to the consideration of the administrative difficulties entailed in securing an equitable award; and to the financial considerations involved in any proposed scheme of this character.

Lieut.-Colonel WHITE: Does the right hon. Gentleman suggest that financial considerations would affect the issue of clasps? Surely the nation will be willing to give a clasp.

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: My hon. and gallant Friend must realise that financial considerations can never be entirely absent from a matter of this sort. On the other hand, he may rely that we are not likely to be mean in a matter of this sort. Nevertheless, the various ways, which all incur considerable expense, must be carefully considered.

Captain TERRELL: Does the right hon. Gentleman's Department intend to differentiate between the clasps awarded to staff officers and those awarded to regimental officers?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: If my hon. Friend presses that question, he must give notice. The general answer is no.

OFFICERS' UNIFORMS.

Colonel Sir CHARLES YATE: 25.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the War Office if he is aware that tailors are still charging officers more than 10 guineas for a khaki twillette tunic for Eastern service and £4 10s. for a pair of trousers; and what steps he proposes to take to cheapen the cost of officers' uniform in these respects?

Sir A. WILLIAMSON: I am informed that uniform of authorised patterns for Eastern stations can be purchased from tailors for very considerably less than the prices quoted. There are also a few khaki drill uniforms of officers' pattern still in stock at the Royal Army Clothing Department, which officers may purchase if they wish; the price at present is £2 1s. 6d. for a jacket and £1 0s. 3d. for trousers.

Sir C. YATE: Can any steps be taken against these tailors who are charging exorbitant prices?

Sir A. WILLIAMSON: I am afraid I cannot answer that.

AUSTRIA (RELIEF OF DISTRESS).

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: 2.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he can state the present
position with regard to the relief of distress in Austria; what steps are being taken by His Majesty's Government to aid the civil population in Austria and to assist the Austrian Government in restoring trade; and whether any settled policy has yet been adopted with a view to dealing with the present situation?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Cecil Harmsworth): In 1919 His Majesty's Government made a loan of $16,000,000 to Austria, the French and Italian Governments making equal contributions. In addition to this, His Majesty's Government made a further allocation in that year to Austria of £1,400,000. Further, under the International Relief Credits Scheme of 1920, in which the United States of America and Great Britain alone of the belligerent Governments participated, His Majesty's Government voted a credit of £10,000,000. Of this sum £5,545,000 has been allocated to Austria, to which country His Majesty's Government have thus advanced credits totalling in all more than £10,000,000. Relief of this nature can, however, only be temporary in its effect, and a permanent improvement in the situation can only be achieved by the gradual economic rehabilitation of Austria. As the hon. and gallant Member is doubtless aware, certain recommendations were made recently by a committee of representatives of the principal Allied Powers in Paris specially appointed to study this question. These recommendations are being examined by the Governments concerned, who have not yet reached a final decision.

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Have not these payments and credits been very much in the nature of doles or charity, and when does the Government expect to reach, with its Allies, some conclusion as to a settled policy of rehabilitating the country?

Mr. HARMSWORTH: I have said that question is now being considered by the several Governments.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is there any hope of some policy being arrived at soon in view of the length of time since the Armistice?

Mr. HARMSWORTH: I certainly hope so.

Colonel GREIG: Has any security been taken from that country for the advances which have been made?

Mr. HARMSWORTH: Perhaps the hon. and gallant Gentleman will give me notice of that question.

PERU (IMMIGRATION).

Major MALONE: 3.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that numerous complaints have been made against the Peruvian Government by intending emigrants for non compliance with agreements entered into by their agent; whether he will endeavour to obtain compensation for the following very hard cases, who, on the faith of an agreement, sold their homes and, after several postponements, were finally informed that they could not be taken, Messrs. Blythe, Gardner, and Tingey, all residing at Tottenham?

Mr. HARMSWORTH: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. His Majesty's Minister at Lima has already been instructed to bring this matter to the notice of the Peruvian Government and to ascertain whether they are prepared to accept responsibility for the losses incurred in such cases as those mentioned.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE.

FOREIGN COMPETITION.

Mr. CLOUGH: 4.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department whether his latest information from any of the parts of the British Empire shows that, as a result of high prices, British goods have been suffering from foreign competition on a cheaper scale owing to rates of exchange and other causes; and, if so, in what direction of manufactured exports this tendency is most pronounced?

Mr. KELLAWAY (Secretary, Department of Overseas Trade): During 1920 the total volume of British exports to Empire markets was adversely affected by the scarcity of British export coal. During the same period, American and Japanese
competition have proved formidable and trade was lost on account of lower prices, particularly as regards American railway material, motor vehicles, and tinplate, and cheap Japanese textiles and hardware. In these cases the encroachment was not assisted by the general level of the exchanges; but any disadvantage in this respect was counter-balanced by-ability to quote firm prices and definite dates of delivery. There is no evidence that British goods have been displaced during the past year to any serious extent by competitive goods of European origin, but present indications suggest that more severe European competition must be anticipated in the near future. I should add that the proportion of total British exports sold within the Empire has displayed a continuous and gratifying increase during the past year. In the last quarter of 1920, 40.1 per cent. of our exports went to Empire markets, as compared with 37.1 per cent. for the year 1913.

Oral Answers to Questions — RUSSIA.

BRITISH PRISONERS (BAKU).

Mr. CLOUGH: 9.
asked the Secretary of State for War if he is aware that one of the British prisoners recently released from Baku has since died, chiefly owing to ill-treatment received whilst in captivity; whether he can report on the condition of these prisoners when released; and whether any steps have been or are to be taken to impress on the Government responsible that British subjects may not with impunity be submitted to barbarous and degrading treatment by any foreign Power?

Mr. HARMSWORTH: I regret to state that one of the naval prisoners from Baku died in England not long after his repatriation, but I am not in a position to state the cause of his death, as the report which has been called for from his doctor has not yet come to hand. As regards the second part of the question, His Majesty's representative at Tiflis reported that the prisoners were all in good health on arrival there from Azerbaijan. I sympathise with the view expressed in the last part of the question, but I do not think that any useful purpose would be served by making the suggested pronouncement.

Oral Answers to Questions — IRELAND.

ARMOURED CARS AND LORRIES.

Mr. PENNEFATHER: 20.
asked the Secretary of State for War why, in the official reports of ambushes of soldiers in Ireland, no mention is made of armoured protection for cars and lorries; and what percentage of military cars and lorries have, in fact, been provided with armoured protection?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: It is not considered to be in the public interest to publish in the official reports whether cars attacked are, or are not, furnished with armour protection, apart from the armoured cars proper. A large number of the lorries, vans and cars in Ireland are already so protected, and this number is steadily increasing. The poor success to the rebels which has attended recent ambushes, and the few casualties inflicted on the troops, proves that this armouring is efficient. It must be remembered that the object of troops when attacked is not to remain in the cars, but to get out and take the offensive against their assailants.

COURT-MARTIAL.

Major COHEN: 21.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether a court-martial in Ireland has been censured by a King's Bench judge; and, if so, whether it is proposed to take any action in the matter?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: My attention has been called to a statement in the Press to this effect. It is not correct. In the case of Joseph Murphy the Court of King s Bench in Dublin upon the evidence before it held that a court-martial were wrong in point of law in refusing an application made by counsel for the defence, at the trial, for the production of the proceedings of a Court of Inquiry. But so far from censuring the court-martial, the King's Bench expressly stated that they could not blame the court for following the advice given to them by the Judge Advocate at the trial on a question of law. The Judge Advocate at the trial was a civilian barrister of 18 years' standing with great experience of criminal cases both before civil courts and courts-martial.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the administration of martial law at that date in Ireland has been very gravely criticized
by persons who are presumably friendly to his own Government? Is that receiving the careful attention of the Judge Advocate?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: I am not aware, speaking generally, that any just criticism has been brought against the administration of justice by these courts.

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Has the right hon. Gentleman heard of the court-martial on the editor and proprietors of the "Freeman's Journal," and the criticisms passed upon it there, and the action of the Government in overriding the findings?

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is raising other points.

MAIL SERVICE, WATERFORD AND LONDON.

Captain REDMOND: 72.
asked the Postmaster-General what is the difference in time taken in the carriage of mails between London and Waterford, viâ Fishguard and Rosslare, at present compared to pro-War time; and when pre-War conditions will be resumed?

The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Illingworth): In pre-War conditions the mails from London by this route arrived at Waterford 50 minutes earlier than at present, and those from Waterford arrived in London 1 hour and 38 minutes earlier. Neither the trains nor the boats are controlled by the Post Office, nor were they controlled before the War, and I am, therefore, not in a position to say whether the pre-War timing will be resumed.

Captain REDMOND: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that great dissatisfaction exists in all parts of Ireland, North and South, with regard to facilities for mails, and does he lead us to understand that, as Postmaster-General, he can do nothing whatsoever to bring these facilities to the position they were in before the War? Is the Postmaster-General helpless in the matter? Do I understand that the Postmaster-General can do nothing to make these railway companies carry the mails as efficiently, and in as short space of time, as they did before the War?

Mr. ILLINGWORTH: I will make representations to the railway companies, and do what I can.

AUXILIARY POLICE (COURT OF INQUIRY).

Captain REDMOND: (by Private Notice)
asked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been called to a grave report circulated in this morning's Press, namely, that 30 cadets were recently caught red-handed in organised looting; that the case was investigated by the Commandant of the Division who remanded live for trial by court-martial and dismissed the remainder from the Division; that these latter, on their return to England, had an interview with a police adviser to the Viceroy; that their theft was condoned, their dismissal cancelled, and they were sent back to Ireland to their original company; that their Commanding Officer's decision was arbitrarily overruled, and that, as a consequence, the Commanding Officer and Adjutant have resigned; and whether he will state the name and authority of the arbitrary adviser, and what steps the Government intend taking in the matter?

The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Colonel Sir Hamar Greenwood): I will answer this question, and, at the same time, answer a similar question of the Noble Lord the Member for South Nottingham (Lord H. Cavendish-Bentinck). I wired to-day to the Chief of Police for his observations on this matter, and I will read to the House his reply in full, which is as follows:
On receipt of a complaint that a party of the Auxiliary Division had been guilty of looting, the Chief of Police directed the Commandant of the Auxiliary Division to make immediate inquiry. The Commandant thereupon arrested five platoon commanders and section leaders and one cadet, with a view to their being brought to trial, as he considered there was clear evidence against them. The services of the remainder of the party were dispensed with. Dismissal can only be carried out by the direction of the Chief of Police. The Chief of Police sent instructions to suspend action against the 26 cadets until he returned to Dublin. This letter took 24 hours to reach the Commandant of the Auxiliary Division., with the result that the men were sent to England. On arrival in England they protested to the Chief of Police at the Irish Office that they had been dismissed without trial. On his return to Dublin, he directed that the dismissed cadets should be recalled without prejudice to any future disciplinary action if found guilty. He at once instituted a Court of Inquiry into the whole of the circumstances which is now proceeding. The cadets have not been allowed to return to their own unit, and there is no question under any circumstances of allowing them to do so. They are now awaiting the finding
of the Court. The Commanding Officer and the Adjutant have resigned. [HON. MEMBERS: 'Why!'] There is no condonation of looting of any sort. In all cases of this nature the accused are, if the evidence-warrants it, sent for trial. The County Inspector of Police could not support the summary dismissal of these cadets without full investigation.
May I, in answer to an interruption, in the nature of a supplementary question, say that the commanding officer and adjutant of the Auxiliary Division have resigned, and their resignations have been accepted by the Chief of Police? I am bound to be advised by the Chief of Police in this matter. I can assure the House he has my instructions, and I am confident he will carry them out, to inflict the severest possible penalty on these or any other persons guilty of breaches of discipline.

Captain REDMOND: Am I to understand that the Government are so bent upon carrying out a policy of utter indiscipline in the armed forces of the Crown in Ireland that they will not even treat with regard the decisions of their own officers, but must have them arbitrarily overruled by a higher power here in London?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: No, no; I must correct that. Personally, I have nothing to do with this matter of the discipline of the police.

Captain REDMOND: I am not referring to you individually, but to the Government.

Mr. DEVLIN: Do I understand—

Sir H. GREENWOOD: General Tudor, the Chief of Police, is taking the severest steps possible; but I must say—and I think the House will agree with me—that I do not think anyone should be condemned before trial.

Mr. HOGGE: May I ask my right hon. Friend whether, first, the police are superior to these military officers who are in charge of the Black and Tans; and, secondly, what is the reason the Inspector of Police has accepted the resignation of Brigadier-General Crozier, otherwise known as Colonel-Commandant Crozier, and the Adjutant.

Lieut.-Colonel ARCHER-SHEE: May I ask whether, in view of the fact that there was this delay of 24 hours in a letter from the police officer, and that it was
owing to that delay that this mistake occurred, the right hon. Gentleman will himself go into the matter, and reconsider the question of the resignation of this commandant; it was entirely owing to this delay in the letter that the whole situation has arisen, and that this officer's resignation was handed in?

Mr. J. H. THOMAS: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell the House why these officers resigned?

Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCK: May I ask why the Commandant dispensed with the services of these men?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: I have read to the House the whole reply I got from the Chief of Police this morning in answer to a telegram I sent to him. I do not think I can add anything to what I have stated.

Mr. DEVLIN: Are we to understand that these military officers, the superior officers of these men, investigated the charges of looting made against them, and that, having investigated these charges, they, acting as investigators, dismissed them, and that these men, although they are not now allowed back into their units, were subsequently retained as officers in Ireland; that the investigating tribunal resigned, and that the resignations have been accepted; and that the only people now in charge of these matters are the criminals who are guilty of these acts for which they were dismissed, and for which officers left the army?

Colonel CLAUDE LOWTHER: Before the right hon. Gentleman answers that question, and in view of the fact that fictitious charges are almost daily made against officers of the Crown, will the Government take steps to discover who is responsible for these charges, because a great deal of capital is being made out of them?

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: May I ask if it is not a fact that General Crozier received a telegram from these 30 men that they were returning on orders, and that he thereupon resigned; if this is not the case, why did he resign?

Mr. DEVLIN: May I ask the Prime Minister whether now, having heard this discussion in the House, he will be prepared, in view of the conflict that exists between officers and men, and the serious-
ness of this matter to these officers, to appoint a committee of inquiry to investigate this matter?

Captain REDMOND: Were these military, officers dismissed because the decision they gave in carrying out what they considered to be their duty was distasteful to the policy of the Government?

Lieut.-Colonel CROFT: May I ask the right hon Gentleman if he will inform the officers of the Army of the sympathy of the hon. Member for the Falls Division (Mr. Devlin) and his colleagues?

At the end of Questions,

Mr. DEVLIN: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, "the refusal of His Majesty's Ministers to give satisfaction to all sections of this House in regard to the serious condition of affairs that has arisen in the British Army in Ireland."

Mr. SPEAKER: I am afraid that is too vague a matter.

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: May I move—

Mr. J. JONES: rose.
[HON. MEMBERS: "Order, order!"] It is all right; I am standing up, too. May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether other criminals, where a conflict of evidence arises, can be given the benefit of the doubt in the same way as these gentlemen? [HON. MEMBERS: "They always do!"]

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: On a point of Order—

Mr. SPEAKER: Captain Loseby.

Oral Answers to Questions — MESOPOTAMIA.

BRITISH AND INDIAN TROOPS.

Mr. MOSLEY: 22.
asked the Secretary of State for War the strength of the British and Indian Forces at present employed in Mesopotamia; and what is the ration strength?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: The total strength of the military forces at present in Mesopotamia, including North West Persia, is approximately: British Army (all ranks) 17,000; Indian Army (all
ranks) 87,000. The total ration strength, which includes local labour, civilians, refugees, etc., is approximately 220,000

OFFICERS PAY, INCOME TAX.

Colonel Sir C. YATE: 24.
asked the Financial Secretary to the War Office what steps have been taken to put a stop to the deduction of English Income Tax from the pay of officers serving in Mesopotamia who are paid in rupees?

Sir A. WILLIAMSON: I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the answers given by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in reply to questions by the hon. and learned Member for York on the 4th and 18th November last. British officers serving in Mesopotamia are now paid in sterling, not in rupees. Indian Army officers are paid in rupees. Liability to British Income Tax is determined, not by the basis on which the pay is fixed, but by the service from which the pay is defrayed. Emoluments defrayed from Imperial Funds are subject to deduction of British Income Tax.

Sir C. YATE: Cannot the War Office do anything to put a stop to this very inequitable differentiation in the treatment of officers on service in Mesopotamia?

Sir A. WILLIAMSON: I do not think we can.

NEWSPAPEE ARTICLES (POLICE ACTION).

Mr. HIGHAM: 26.
asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that articles detrimental to the best interests of the State are appearing regularly in a certain newspaper; will he explain why action has not been taken in the matter; is he aware of the fact that the police authorities would take action but for certain instructions from his office; and will he explain why restraint is placed upon the Commissioner of Police in carrying out what he considers to be his duty in this matter?

The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Shortt): Articles which seem to me detrimental to the best interests of the State appear from time to time in more, than one news-
paper; but no action can be taken unless the law is violated, and even then it may be a question whether a prosecution would not do more harm by advertising the paper than any good that would come of it. I have not issued any general instructions in this matter, and no restraint is put on the Commissioner by the Home Office; and I may point out that it would be not for him, but for the Director of Public Prosecutions to take any action.

Captain TERRELL: Will the right hon. Gentleman undertake to suppress the "Daily Herald?"

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Have any of the articles in question been submitted to the Director of Public Prosecutions to see whether a prosecution should take place?

Mr. SHORTT: Yes. We are constantly doing so.

Mr. LYLE-SAMUEL: Is there any truth in the suggestion conveyed in this question that there is a conflict of opinion between the Commissioner of Police and the Home Secretary? If so, can we have an assurance that the right hon. Gentleman responsible to this House will maintain his own policy?

Mr. SHORTT: There is not the faintest ground for suggesting that.

LICENCES (EXTINCTION).

Mr. A. WILLIAMS: 27.
asked the Home Secretary how many licences were suppressed with compensation under the Licensing (Consolidation) Act, 1910, during the year 1920; and how many county licensing authorities have decided to impose a compensation levy under that Act for the present year?

Mr. SHORTT: As regards the first part of the question, the preparation of the statistics is not complete, but it appears, subject to verification, that 519 licences in England and Wales were extinguished on payment of compensation in the year 1920. The information asked for in the second part of the question is not yet available.

Mr. WILLIAMS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this Act has practically become a dead letter in many counties at the present time?

Mr. SHORTT: No. I should not go so far as that.

JUVENILE OFFENDERS.

Major GLYN: 28.
asked the Home Secretary what were the figures of entry of male and female juvenile offenders into the Borstal institutions in England and Wales in 1918, 1919, and 1920; and whether, seeing that in the opinion of the Committees of those institutions, from evidence of the police courts, there is every reason to believe that criminal ideas are inculcated into the minds of children by the character of some films that now pass the Censorship Committee, the Home Office will obtain reports from prison authorities and police court magistrates in London and the provinces as to what their opinion is of the present censorship of cinema films?

Mr. SHORTT: The numbers were, in 1918, 525 males and 87 females; in 1919, 587 males and 98 females; in 1920, 704 males and 76 females. There is no evidence that the increase in the number of males which has followed demobilisation is due to the influence of cinematograph films. It is obvious that the production of sensational films cannot exercise a wholesome influence on young people, but inquiries that have been made from time to time have found very little definite evidence to show that crime can be directly attributed to such films. The Chief Magistrate also informs me that no evidence of this kind has come under his notice.

Oral Answers to Questions — PRISONS.

STRICT SEPARATE CONFINEMENT.

Mr. SPOOR: 30.
asked the Home Secretary on what principle the prison regulations were altered so as to abolish strict separate confinement during the first month for women sentenced to imprisonment with hard labour, while such separate confinement was retained for male prisoners having similar sentences?

Mr. SHORTT: It has always been the practice in English prisons to enforce sentences of hard labour less severely in the case of women than in the case of men. Separate confinement of women during the first month of their sentence has not been abolished, because it has never been imposed by the prison rules.

OFFICIALS (MILITARY SERVICE).

Mr. SPOOR: 31.
asked the Home Secretary how many of the governors, superior officers, and subordinate officers of His Majesty's prisons, respectively, have been members of the Regular Forces, military or naval, before taking up their prison appointments?

Mr. SHORTT: Twenty-six prison governors have served with the Regular Forces, not including five who joined temporarily during the War. I have not got the figures for the lower ranks, but a large proportion of the prison officers had previous military or naval service, and all those appointed since the War are men who served in the forces during the War.

WORN-OUT HORSES.

Mr. GWYNNE: 33.
asked the Home Secretary whether his attention has been called to the Continental traffic in worn-out horses; and what steps he has taken to see that these horses are in a fit state to travel and are properly cared for during the crossing and on landing?

Commander EYRES-MONSELL (Treasurer of the Household): I have been asked to reply to this question. The Diseases of Animals Act, 1910, as amended by the Exportation of Horses Act, 1914, prohibits the shipment of any horse from any port in Great Britain to any port on the Continent unless it has been examined immediately before shipment by a veterinary inspector of the Ministry of Agriculture, and certified by him to be fit to travel and also fit to work without suffering. It is therefore illegal to ship any horses incapable of passing this test. Veterinary inspectors have been appointed by the Ministry at all the ports of shipment to examine horses presented for that purpose, and explicit instructions have been given to them by the Ministry not to pass any animal which does not comply fully with the standard of fitness laid down by the Acts. The Ministry has no reason to believe that these instructions are not strictly complied with. Regulations have been made by the Ministry with regard to the construction of vessels carrying horses, and as to their feeding and attendance whilst on board. These Regulations are contained in the Horses (Importation and Transit) Order of 1913. The Ministry
has no jurisdiction as regards the manner in which the animals are dealt with on landing on the Continent.

Mr. GWYNNE: To what Ministry does the hon. and gallant Gentleman refer?

Commander EYRES-MONSELL: To the Ministry of Agriculture.

Sir J. BUTCHER: Are any reports made by these inspectors to the Home Office? If so, will they be laid on the Table?

Commander EYRES-MONSELL: I am only answering for the Minister of Agriculture, but everything in a legislative and administrative way is done, so far as Ministers can do it.

TRAFFIC REGULATIONS.

Captain Viscount CURZON: 34.
asked the Home Secretary whether the police have any instructions with reference to vehicles waiting in the streets of the Metropolitan area, having regard to the convenience of the public, the necesity of avoiding obstruction to traffic, and the convenience of those using the vehicles?

Mr. SHORTT: The standing instructions to police are to prevent obstruction by waiting vehicles that are not in the act of loading or unloading. When possible, waiting ranks are provided at places of public resort and elsewhere, but the free circulation of traffic is the prime consideration.

TWENTY-FOUR HOUR CLOCK.

Viscount CURZON: 35.
asked the Home Secretary whether any decision has been come to with reference to the general use of the 24-hour clock?

Mr. SHORTT: His Majesty's Government has decided not to take any steps at present for the adoption of the 24-hour system in this country.

SIDE-CAR TAXICABS.

Viscount CURZON: 36.
asked the Home Secretary whether applications for the
licensing of side-car taxicabs will now be considered for the Metropolitan Police area?

Mr. SHORTT: The answer is in the negative. I am informed by the Ministry of Transport that the Departmental Committee on the Taxation and Regulation of Road Vehicles, to which this question was referred, has come to the conclusion that it is not desirable that licences to ply for hire with these vehicles in the London area should be issued at the present time.

Viscount CURZON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that some of these vehicles are plying in provincial towns and are very popular and extremely comfortable?

Mr. SHORTT: I know that there are three in Birmingham, three in Nottingham, and, I think, two in Brighton and another South Coast place, and I am told that they are not very popular.

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTLAND.

GAME AND HEATHER BURNING.

Major M. WOOD: 38.
asked the Secretary for Scotland what is the cause of the delay in publishing the reports of the Game and Heather-Burning (Scotland) Committee; and when they may be expected?

The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Mr. Munro): I am informed that the report of this Committee is now in proof, and I expect to receive it very shortly.

DANGEROUS DRUGS ACT (REGULATIONS).

Rear-Admiral ADAIR: 39.
asked the Secretary for Scotland whether he has received letters from chemists in Scotland protesting against certain parts of the new Regulations under the Dangerous Drugs Act; and, if so, will he say whether he is taking any action in the matter?

Mr. SHORTT: My right hon. Friend has asked me to reply to this question. I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the statement made last Thursday by my hon. and gallant Friend the Under-Secretary for the Home Office, in answer to a number of questions on this subject.

Oral Answers to Questions — POST OFFICE.

TELEPHONE SERVICE.

Mr. HIGHAM: 41.
asked the Postmaster-General whether he is in a position to state the round number of telephone calls which were sent through the exchanges of the United Kingdom during 1920; what proportion of these were on the flat-rate basis; will he state how many flat-rate users there are who originate less than 2,000 calls per annum; and whether, in regard to trunk calls, he can state how many users there are where the new rate will be less than the present one?

Mr. ILLINGWORTH: The approximate number of telephone calls effected in the year ended 31st March, 1920, was about 850,000,000. Of these, about 40 per cent. were made by existing flat-rate subscribers. About 50,000 of the present flat-rate users (including the £8 residence flat-rate) do not originate 2,000 calls per annum. I have no figures as to the distribution of trunk calls between different users, but it is estimated that as regards 25 per cent. of the existing trunk calls the new charge will be lower than the old.

Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: 43.
asked the Postmaster-General whether he can give the approximate number of telephone calls with which he expects the telephone service to deal every year under his proposed universal measured rate; how many extra officials will be necessary for the registering and collection of charges; and what will be the annual cost of their salaries?

Mr. ILLINGWORTH: The number of telephone calls is materially affected by the existing trade depression. Making due allowance for this and for a probable reduction in the calling rate, especially of flat-rate subscribers on the introduction of the new tariff, the number of calls in 1921–22 is roughly estimated at between 800 and 850 millions. The additional staff required for registering calls and collecting charges under the new tariff is estimated to be 150 at an annual cost in salaries of £23,000.

Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: Does the right hon. Gentleman think that with a staff of 100 to 150 he will be able to ensure an accurate presenting of accounts and an avoidance of the present very prevalent
complaints that such accounts are inaccurate?

Mr. ILLINGWORTH: Yes, I think so. I would remind the hon. Member that there are already 90 per cent. of the subscribers charged in this way.

Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: Can the right hon. Gentleman say, in connection with the figure of 800,000,000 calls, what is the present number of cases dealt with and for what reduction allowance is made?

Mr. ILLINGWORTH: I think I said 850,000,000 in answer to the previous question.

Mr. PENNEFATHER: 73 and 74.
asked the Postmaster-General (1) if his attention has been drawn to a resolution passed by the Finance Committee of the Liverpool Corporation in regard to the proposed increase of telephone rates; is he aware that it is estimated that if these increases came into effect it would add some £7,000 to the rates; what steps does he propose to take in the matter;
(2) if he is aware that the proposed new telephone charges, if applied to the Liverpool Co-operative Society, would mean an increase of £506 per annum over the present charge of £536, or nearly double, and that this society, which had intended to increase the number of telephones in use in its business, is, in view of the proposed increase, considering a reduction in the existing number; and will he inquire into this?

Mr. ILLINGWORTH: As the cost of the service will in future be based mainly upon the number of calls made, it is not possible to check the estimates of individual subscribers. Where the additional cost is heavy, it is due partly to the user being large, and partly to the advantage which the subscriber has previously enjoyed of a rate considerably below the cost of providing the service.

Mr. MILLS: 75.
asked the Postmaster-General, with reference to the assertions that the late National Telephone Company made a considerable profit on its operations, how much it cost the Post Office to raise the low rates of wage and pensions paid by the company to the State level?

Mr. ILLINGWORTH: The cost of levelling up the wages of the transferred staff was £158,000 per annum in 1912, and the charge against the telephone accounts to meet the pension liability of the same staff was £243,000, as compared with the company's contribution to the pension fund of £13,000.

MISSING PARCEL.

Mr. T. THOMSON: 42.
asked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that a parcel, No. 4, posted at Middlesbrough General Post Office on 12th January, 1920, addressed to the Bureau of Standards, Washington, had still not been delivered, nor had any compensation been paid, neither had any satisfactory reply been received by the senders from the secretary of the General Post Office, notwithstanding that an extra sum had been charged by the Post Office above that for the official service, which was presumably for protection beyond that which the latter afforded, and that apparently nothing had been done for this?

Mr. ILLINGWORTH: As I explained to the hon. Member last July, the parcel to which he refers was duly forwarded to New York; and there has been no delay on the part of the British Post Office in dealing with the claim. Repeated applications have been made to the American Express Company in the matter; and last month the Vice-Director General of the company in Paris stated that he was pressing the New York Office to give immediate attention to it. I hope, therefore, that the disposal of the parcel may soon be definitely ascertained.

Mr. THOMSON: Does the right hon. Gentleman say that, although there has been a delay of over a year, no undue delay has taken place, and, seeing that an extra sum was charged for insuring this parcel, why is not some return made for this extra sum?

Mr. ILLINGWORTH: No delay was caused by the Post Office. It was caused by the American Express Company.

Lieut.-Colonel ARCHER-SHEE: Is it not the case that valuable parcels are frequently lost by the American Post Office?

SUB-POSTMASTERS (PAY).

Major WATTS MORGAN: 44.
asked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that the Drapers' Chamber of Trade approved and adopted a schedule of minimum rates of wages for shop assistants on 20th April, 1920; whether according to this schedule the appropriate rates for Tylors-town are female learners 12s. per week at 15 years, rising with six monthly increases of 2s. per week to 22s. at 17 years; juniors (female) 30s. at 18 years, rising by annual increments of 4s. to 38s. at 20 years, then by annual increments of 2s. to 54s. at 28 years; whether he is aware that rates in accordance with this schedule are being paid by good employers in the district, and are exceeded by the Co-operative Society; and whether he will re-examine the figures paid by his sub-postmasters?

Mr. ILLINGWORTH: I am having inquiry made, and will communicate with the hon. and gallant Member.

Major MORGAN: Does the right hon. Gentleman remember that he promised an inquiry into this last November and that no reply has been given?

Mr. ILLINGWORTH: I will inquire into that.

PRESS TELEGRAMS.

Mr. MILLS: 76.
asked the Postmaster-General how much Press telegrams now cost the country over and above the rate paid for them by the newspapers; and whether in the interests of economy he intends to alter the present subsidy system?

Mr. ILLINGWORTH: No recent investigation has been made as to the cost of Press, as distinct from ordinary, telegrams, but the loss is no doubt considerable. The rates for Press telegrams were increased on 1st January, 1920, and I do not contemplate a further increase at the present moment. The rates for private wires leased to the Press and to news agencies are, however, about to be raised.

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION.

TEACHERS' SALARIES.

Sir J. BUTCHER: 46.
asked the Prime Minister whether the Board of Education
have any, and, if so, what power of compelling local education authorities to pay the teachers in their locality according to any particular scale laid down by the Burnham Committee; and what discretion, if any, the local education authorities have in the matter?

The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Fisher): The Prime Minister has asked me to reply to this question. The Board's Regulations prescribe the payment of minimum rates of salary to certificated and uncertificated teachers in public elementary schools, but do not otherwise require the adoption of any particular scale or scales of salary by local education authorities. The Burnham Commitee is essentially a representative Committee, of which half the members were appointed by the associations of local education authorities, to which all local education authorities belong, and it was constituted in order to secure the orderly and progressive solution of the salary problem by agreement.

Sir J. BUTCHER: In cases where the scale laid down by the Board differs from that of the Burnham Committee, is the local authority at liberty to select which it chooses?

Mr. FISHER: The Burnham Committee hopes to distribute the scale according to areas. That distribution has not yet been effected. The local authority will then have to consider whether it will adopt the suggestion of the Burnham Committee.

Sir J. BUTCHER: If it does not accept that suggestion can it go to the Board of Education and get the scales fixed, or how are they fixed?

Mr. FISHER: Salaries are matters of agreement between the local education authorities and the teachers employed by those authorities. The Burnham Committee was instituted in order to find some orderly method of settling salary problems throughout the country and in order to prevent one authority bidding against another for teachers.

Mr. T. THOMSON: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether, where a local authority and its teachers have agreed upon a scale under the original Burnham Report, the Board will confirm the agreement reached?

Mr. FISHER: If the hon. Member will refer to my correspondence with Lord Burnham, he will see exactly how the matter stands. It is rather a complicated question to explain to the House, because it depends very much as to when and under what circumstances the local education authority came to the agreement.

Mr. THOMSON: With regard to that correspondence, does the right hon. Gentleman, seek to vary the original finding of the Burnham Report in the correspondence?

Mr. FISHER: No, not the original Burnham Report.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL NAVY.

CONSTRUCTION POLICY.

Lieut. - Colonel ARCHER - SHEE: 48.
asked the Prime Minister whether any policy has yet been decided on by the Cabinet with reference to the building of capital ships, in view of the fact that the United States are now building or are about to build 700,000 tons of capital ships, and that Japan is building or is about to build nearly 300,000 tons of capital ships; whether any decision has been come to to postpone the question of laying down capital ships until after the Imperial Conference; whether there are very few slips upon which first-class capital ships can be built in this country, and that, if the order for large ships is delayed, it will mean that it will be difficult to obtain the necessary armour, guns, etc., owing to the disbandment of their expert staffs and dismantling of their factories by the armament firms; and whether he can say whether the House will be given an opportunity of discussing the general policy as regards naval strength at an early date?

Mr. BONAR LAW (Leader of the House): The question of the building of capital ships is still under consideration of the Committee of Imperial Defence, who have before their minds all the considerations referred to in the question of my hon. and gallant Friend. No decision has yet been reached. The House will have the opportunity of discussing the subject in connection with the Naval Estimates.

Mr. LAMBERT: Will any provision be made for the construction of capital ships in the Navy Estimates about to be submitted?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I said that no decision had yet been taken. When the Estimates are submitted the House will see what is the decision of the Government.

Mr. E. WOOD: When is it expected that the Committee will form their conclusion?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I think we should have had the matter settled now but for the Conference. We must come to a decision before the Estimates are introduced and the end of the financial year.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is the Government considering approaching the Powers mentioned on the question, with regard to a conference on the whole question of shipbuilding?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I think it would be undesirable to give any expression of opinion about that. At all events, it would be premature until a new American Government has taken office.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Are we doing nothing?

Rear-Admiral ADAIR: Are the figures which are quoted, 700,000 and 300,000, respectively, accepted as correct by the Admiralty or by whomsoever is supposed to check them?

Mr. BONAR LAW: As my answer did not go into details I did not check the figures. I cannot say off-hand.

Lieut.-Colonel ARCHER-SHEE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that these are figures given by a first-class American naval expert and that they were published in one of the leading newspapers?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I was not aware of that. In any case I cannot accept responsibility for them without examination.

OFFICERS' INCOME TAX.

Mr. STEWART: 68.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether naval officers and men stationed in India and China, who have received some compensation in exchange owing to the price of silver being exceptionally high last year, are now called upon to pay Income Tax
on the compensations so received in addition to Income Tax charged in the usual way upon their ordinary pay; whether such extra Income Tax has been made retrospective as from 1st April, 1920; and whether, as this affects only a small number of people of strictly limited means who have in many cases, owing to the high cost of living on their respective stations, spent all their income, and have no means of meeting the retrospective surcharge now levied upon them, he can see his way to remit it, in view of the fact that it is very burdensome to the officers and men affected, that it has taken them entirely by surprise, and that it produces very little to the Exchequer?

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Chamberlain): Amounts received on account of exchange compensation are liable to Income Tax equally with any other form of war bonus, and the tax thereon is being collected in the usual course for the current year of assessment ending on the 5th April next. The tax chargeable under the provisions of the Income Tax Acts, on payments of this character, is paid by all officers of the Crown, including the naval officers and men to whom my hon. Friend refers.

CORN LANDS, AMESBURY.

Mr HUGH MORRISON: 51.
asked the Prime Minister whether he is aware that the cultivation sub-committee of the Wilts Argicultural Committee view with alarm the Order which has recently been served on certain War Department tenants to sow back to grass several thousand acres of valuable corn-growing land which were broken up during the War in the districts around Amesbury: whether he is aware that, if this Order is proceeded with, it will cause grave unemployment in the district; and whether, in the interest of national food production, he will at once take steps to have this Order reconsidered?

Commander EYRES-MONSELL: I have been asked to reply. Representations of the nature referred to in the question have been received from the Wilts Agricultural Committee, and the Ministry is in communication with the War Office on the subject. I would, however, refer my hon. Friend to the reply which was given by the Secretary of State for War on the
17th instant to a question on the subject by the hon. and gallant Member for the Westbury Division.

WASHINGTON LABOUR CONFERENCE CONVENTIONS.

Mr. BARNES: 52.
asked the Lord Privy Seal whether he is aware of the widespread concern at the Government failure to carry out the conventions of the Washington Labour Conference; and if he can give a day for the consideration of the question in all its bearings?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I am not aware of any failure on the part of the Government to carry out the obligations assumed by them with respect to the Washington draft conventions under the Labour Clauses of the Peace Treaty, but I understand that my right hon. Friend differs from the Government as to the exact meaning of these obligations. It is not possible before the end of the financial year to find time for such a discussion as my right hon. Friend suggests, but if he will put a question to me after Easter I shall be glad to consider it.

NATIONAL EXPENDITURE (SELECT COMMITTEE).

Mr. MARRIOTT: 53.
asked the Lord Privy Seal whether it is proposed to reappoint the Select Committee on National Expenditure; and, if so, whether it will be appointed at an early date in order that it may consider and report upon some of the Estimates for the coming year?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: It is proposed to ask the House to reappoint the Select Committee; on National Expenditure.

Oral Answers to Questions — PEACE TREATIES.

LONDON CONFERENCE.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir F. HALL: 54.
asked the Lord Privy Seal whether the attention of the Government has been called to the terms of the note addressed by M T[...]hitcherin, on behalf of the Soviet authorities, to the Angora Government with respect to its participation in the
London Conference; if, in this note, it was stated that, as regards anti-British activity, it was arranged tht this should only be prohibited in essentilly British territory; if this was the basis of the negotiations with M. Krassin; and whether, under this arrangement, the Moscow Government would be free to carry on its propaganda work in Anatolia, Caucasia, Persia, Afghanistan, and any other country of which Great Britain is not in actual possession?

Mr. BONAR LAW: His Majesty's Government have no knowledge of the note in question beyond the information concerning it printed in the public Press.

Sir F. HALL: May we assume that there is no truth in the statement referred to in the last part of this question?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I really cannot give any answer as to the views of the Soviet Government, but there is no truth in the suggestion that they represent our views.

TAXATION (REVENUE).

Mr. CLOUGH: 55.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer to give the gross and net amounts received from, and in each case indicate the cost of collecting, the following taxes during the first nine months of the present financial year: Income Tax, Super-tax, Excess Profits Duty, and the duties on sugar, tea, beer, spirits, wines, and entertainments?

Mr. KILEY: 62 and 63.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) the amount of revenue received during the year 1920 from the duty of 33 per cent. levied on imported watches and clocks; whether it is possible, to give the proportion received on component parts used by manufacturers and repairers;
(2) the amount of revenue received during the year 1920 from the duty of 33⅓ per cent. levied on imported musical instruments; and what proportion of this was derived from component parts used by the manufacturers of musical instruments in this country?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I will have the answers to these questions published in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

The following are the answers mentioned:—

The particulars of the gross and net amounts received from these duties during the first nine months (1st April-31st December) of the current financial year (1920–1921) are as follow:—


—
Gross Receipts.
Net Receipts.



£
£


Income Tax
177,800,000
143,222,000


Super-tax
12,887,000
12,711,000


Excess Profits Duty and Munitions Levy, after adjustments between E.P.D. and Coal Levy.
166,720,000
158,221,000


Sugar—




Imported
21,436,000
20,963,000


Home-grown
923,000
912,000


Total Sugar
22,359,000
21,875,000


Tea
12,774,000
12,760,000


Beer—




Imported
10,000
10,000


Home-made
92,529,000
91,343,000


Total Beer
92,539,000
91,353,000


Spirits—




Imported
13,450,000
13,417,000


Home-made
47,366,000
41,929,000


Total Spirits
60,816,000
55,346,000


Wine
2,283,000
2,258,000


Entertainments Tax.
8,522,000
8,397,000


It is not possible to give the cost of collection of each tax separately as the staff employed in collection is not allocated to particular taxes.

The revenue received from imported watches and clocks and musical instruments in the period from 1st January to 31st December, 1920, was as follows:

From imported watches and clocks, £910,600 (of which £211,200 was derived from component parts).

From imported musical instruments, £466,300 (of which £225,900 was derived from component parts).

INCOME TAX.

Mr. JOHN GUEST: 56.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that grave hardship is being caused
owing to youths and young men whose total earnings are devoted to the support of the home being compelled to pay Income Tax, while the combined income of father and son is, owing to unemployment, accident, or illness of parent, far below the exemption limit; and if he will take steps to remove this serious injustice at an early date?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I understand the hon. Member to suggest that where more than one person in a home is in receipt of income, the total income coming into that particular home should not be charged with Income Tax except so far as it is in excess of the aggregate amount of the Income Tax allowance and deductions to which the recipients are individually entitled. Proposals of this nature for determining liability to Income Tax on what is known as the "family basis" were considered by the Royal Commission on the Income Tax, but were definitely rejected in favour of the system of Income Tax graduation and allowances, which was embodied in the Finance Act of last year. In these circumstances, I do not see my way to adopt the hon. Member's suggestion.

Mr. GUEST: Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to give special consideration to those youths under twenty-one years of age who are practically the mainstay of the home during the period of illness?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: No, I cannot make special exceptions in favour of particular cases. Hard cases make very bad law.

REVENUE BILL.

Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSON: 58.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer when it is proposed to introduce the Revenue Bill?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I hope to introduce the Bill at an early date, but I am not able to name a day.

Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: May the House take it that this Bill will be taken downstairs, and not sent up to Grand Committee?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: No, I shall ask the House to send it upstairs. That is the only hope of passing it. If the House treats it as a contentious measure it will not be proceeded with.

Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: May the House take it that the right hon. Gentleman is introducing this Bill in order to carry out the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Income Tax in regard to local administration?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I have not yet approved the Bill myself, and I cannot yet say exactly what it will contain, but it will deal certainly with some Income Tax affairs, probably with matters of administration, and with the three years' average, and will probably contain some provisions in connection with Customs and Excise, and various minor alterations of the law, but my hon. and gallant Friend had better wait and see. I will present it to the House as early as I can, but, as I say, the House must understand that if it is to be treated as a contentious measure, I cannot possibly hope to make progress with it this Session.

UNITED STATES (LOANS TO ALLIES).

Sir W. DAVISON: 60.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the total amount of the loan from the United States of America to Great Britain; was any portion of such sum, and, if so, what portion, borrowed direct by the British Government; and what are the amounts for which the British Government are liable as guarantors in respect of loans from the United States through Great Britain to France, Italy, or other allied Powers?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: My hon. Friend's question is based upon a common misapprehension of the facts. Before the entry of the United States into the War, the British and French Governments raised a loan of $500,000,000 in the New York market on their joint and several guarantee. This loan was paid off in equal shares by the two Governments last autumn. No loans were made by the United States Government till after the entry of the United States into the War, and no loans made by the United States Government to Allied Governments were ever guaranteed by us.
Our debt to the United States Government stood at $4,277,000,000 on the 31st May, 1919. It now stands at $4,197,000,000 exclusive of interest since that date.
Our loans to Allied Governments before the entry of the United States into the War amounted to £828,000,000, and after the entry of the United States into the War and during the period in which we were borrowing from the United States Government, we lent a further £897,000,000 to the Allies, making £1,725,000,000 in all.

Sir W. DAVISON: Do I understand then that the prevalent opinion that the United States were not willing to advance money direct to France and Italy unless Great Britain were prepared to back the bill and give the guarantee is not correct? Is that an erroneous impression?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: That is entirely an erroneous impression. The United States made loans to France and to Italy as well as to ourselves, and, as I have said, have neither sought nor received any guarantee from us of any loan they made, except, of course, our obligations for the loans that we ourselves accepted from them.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Was not almost the entirety of the money we borrowed from the United States lent at once to our Allies?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I think if we had not had to meet any calls for assistance from our Allies it would have been unnecessary for us to ask assistance from the United States Government.

CIVIL SERVICE (BONUS).

Mr. E. HARMSWORTH: 67.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will explain why, when the cost of living has fallen 10 points, bonuses will be increased by £2,000 on 1st March under the Civil Service bonus scheme; and when these automatic increases terminate?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Stanley Baldwin): The Civil Service bonus scheme, which came into force last March, provides for revisions at intervals of four months during the first year of the scheme and at intervals of six months thereafter; and the bonus as so assessed is subject to increase or decrease at the rate of 1–26th for each five points rise or fall in the cost of living on the average of the four (or six) months' period preceding the date of revision. Under this arrangement the
bonus, as revised from 1st March, 1921, will be calculated on the cost of living figures for the four preceding months, and this will involve an addition of 2–26ths to the rate of bonus now in force, which was fixed on the average of the four months, July to October, 1920.

Mr. E. HARMSWORTH: Then I am wrong in saying the cost of living has fallen 10 points?

Mr. BALDWIN: I do not think my hon. Friend has quite grasped this matter. It was debated at some length in December, and I may tell him quite shortly that what the Civil Service is going to make on this latest revision on the swings, they lost on the roundabouts throughout the whole of last year.

Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what 2–26ths will amount to in money, and further whether there will be a Supplementary Estimate brought forward during the current year?

Mr. BALDWIN: There is a Supplementary Estimate, which my hon. and gallant Friend has probably seen. I gave him the exact figure on the 18th December. I have not referred to it again, but my recollection is that for the whole 12 months 1–26th amounts to something over £1,000,000.

Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: Will there be a further Supplementary Estimate?

Mr. BALDWIN: No. There is one among the Supplementary Estimates that have just been issued that covers the sum for March.

Lieut.-Colonel ARCHER-SHEE: Would it not be a good thing to get this cost of living figure made up by an independent committee rather than by civil servants who benefit by it themselves?

Mr. BALDWIN: That very point was raised and discussed at some length in the Debate last December, and it is quite possible that the point will be raised again. It is no new point to the House.

Sir H. CRAIK: Is it not the case that the public were represented on the committee that dealt with this matter not by any member of the public, but by the higher officials, who themselves were the beneficiaries?

Colonel C. LOWTHER: If that point was raised and discussed at great length, surely they must have come to some conclusion, or when are they going to come to some conclusion?

Mr. J. JONES: Will the right hon. Gentleman undertake to see that the working men's wives are appointed on any committee to inquire into the cost of living?

Mr. BALDWIN: I find no fault myself with the constitution of the committee which discussed these matters, but the question has been debated and no doubt will be debated again.

Oral Answers to Questions — FOOD SUPPLIES.

WHEAT PRICES.

Mr. GLANVILLE: 69.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what will be the amount which the Government will pay to the farmers for the difference between 95s. per quarter and the price per quarter already received by the farmers for the 1920 wheat crop; and will this sum be paid out of the cost of bread or out of Imperial taxation?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY OF FOOD (Sir W. Mitchell-Thomson): I have been asked to reply. The amount referred to cannot be definitely ascertained until the millers' returns are completed, but a provisional estimate of the Ministry of Agriculture, based upon the quantity of wheat marketed, and upon the prices paid according to returns made under the Corn Returns Act, is approximately £150,000. This amount will be a charge upon the trading accounts of the Royal Commission on Wheat Supplies. It will not increase the price of the loaf.

Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: Is it not a fallacy to look on this matter, as the question does, as a cost to the State? Is it not rather a remission of a forced levy which would otherwise have been made on the British farmer for cheap bread?

FLOUR.

Major MORGAN: 78.
asked the Minister of Food as to the quantity of flour stored at the Assembly Hall, Ferndale, in the month of September, 1919,
what amount of it has been returned to the millers to be re-conditioned; the cost of transit to and from the mills; the amount of flour that still remains in this unsuitable building; and the total cost paid in rental up to date; and is he aware that the contractors have been waiting for some months to commence alterations and repairs so that the building may be handed over for the use of ex-service men?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: The flour stored at the Assembly Hall, Ferndale, was placed there not in September, 1919, as stated in the question, but in March, 1920. The whole of the flour, amounting to about 213 tons has been returned to the mills and no flour now remains in the building. The cost of transit to and from the mills totalled £298 0s. 7d. In July last the owners of the hall, which was lent to the Royal Commission on Wheat Supplies free of all rental charge, suggested that the hall might be wanted for the use of ex-service men, and arrangements were immediately made for part of the hall to be available for this purpose; since then no further communication on this subject has been received from the owners.

Mr. WATERSON: 80.
asked the Minister of Food whether, in view of statements frequently made that Chinese flour held by the Government is unfit for human consumption, he is prepared to call in an impartial analyst to test the present stock held by the Ministry; and, if not, what steps he is prepared to take so that any possible danger to public health be avoided?

The MINISTER of HEALTH (Dr. Addison): I have been asked to reply to this question. I have recently had samples of this flour examined by the Government Chemist and by the Director of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew. I am satisfied from their reports that the flour is of good quality, and that its use does not involve any danger to public health.

HERRINGS.

Mr. PERCY: 81.
asked the Minister of Food the total quantity of herrings purchased last season by or on behalf of the Government and the total cost of same; what part thereof has been sold and what
is the amount realised; what is the present stock in hand fit for food and its estimated value; and what steps he proposes to take, if any, for its prompt realisation so as not to upset the markets in the coming season?

Commander EYRES-MONSELL: I have been asked to reply. The total quantity of herrings purchased by the Government during the summer and autumn fishing of 1920 is 941,099 barrels, at a total cost of £2,960,457. 147,022 barrels have been sold at the price of £433,401. The present unsold stock consists of 794,077 barrels. In the present financial position of Russia and Central Europe, which are the principal markets for pickled herrings, it is impossible to form any reliable estimate of the value of this stock. The whole of it, so far as is known, is in good condition and fit for human consumption. The unsold stock has been handed over to the Government Surplus Stock Disposal Board, and every endeavour is being made to dispose of this stock with as little delay as possible.

Lieut. - Colonel ARCHER - SHEE: May I ask why a question alluding to pickled herrings is not dealt with by the Minister of Food?

Commander EYRES-MONSELL: I understand the Ministry of Agriculture is the responsible Department.

Oral Answers to Questions — NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.

DEPENDANT'S PENSION (MRS. E. HOWMAN).

Mr. GEORGE EDWARDS: 77.
asked the Minister of Pensions if his attention has been drawn to the case of Mrs. E. Howman, the mother of the late Sergeant Joseph Chad Howman, No. 2,100, 21st London Rifles, who made application for pension in October, 1919, which, after repeated applications, was granted from June, 1920; and whether, in view of the fact that the original application was first made in October, 1919, he will have inquiries made as to the reason this pension was only granted from June, 1920?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of PENSIONS (Major Tryon): I am informed that the earliest
application by Mrs. Howman which has been received in the Ministry is dated 25th June, 1920. In view, however, of the statement made in the last part of the question, I am having inquiries made, and will communicate the result to my hon. Friend.

WHISKY (EXPORT).

Major Sir KEITH FRASER: 79.
asked the Minister of Food if he is aware that all the best whiskies are leaving this country on account of whisky being able to be sold for export at 32s. per gallon and only at 16s. 8d. per gallon, in bond, for consumption in the United Kingdom; and, in view of the fact that the new and less wholesome whiskies command in this country the same price as those that are more mature, thanks to the Liquor Control Board Regulations, will he take steps to rectify this evil?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: I have no evidence that would confirm the suggestion made in the first part of the question. With regard to the second part, it is quite impracticable to fix a scale of maximum prices on an age basis, since it is impossible by analysis or by any other means to determine the actual age of any spirit as offered to the consumer.

Sir K. FRASER: May I send the right hon. Gentleman sufficient evidence in writing to show that the best whiskies are leaving the country, and will he take action?

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF MUNITIONS.

DOCUMENTS (ALLEGED IRREGULARITIES).

Captain LOSEBY: (by Private Notice)
asked the Leader of the House whether a large proportion of the outstanding accounts with contractors to the Ministry of Munitions have been and are now being dealt with by a body of three highly-placed officials who have been responsible for their final settlement subject to an independent investigation by a specially appointed official, and audit by the Exchequer and Audit Department of the Treasury; whether these settlements involve many millions; whether on a recent occasion the head of the said highly-placed officials called together the heads
of ledger departments and accounts investigators and instructed them either to destroy or to conceal from the Exchequer and Audit Department material documents, namely, documents outlining the results of investigation; whether the said official in the presence of the Minister and Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Munitions admitted that he had given an order to conceal the said documents from Exchequer and Audit; whether the said official is still being continued in his position, and has been entrusted with still further responsibilities in the matter of disbursing public money; if so, having regard to the vast sums involved in connection with the papers to be concealed and the importance of securing honesty and purity of administration in Government Departments, he will: (1) Immediately cause the suspension of the officials involved; (2) set up an independent commission or committee of inquiry with the fullest judicial powers?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I am informed that the statements contained in this question have no foundation. Lord Inverforth has, however, appointed a Departmental Committee to inquire into the matter, and has invited my hon. and gallant Friend to give evidence before them. Pending the Report of that Committee, I can make no further statement on the subject.

Captain LOSEBY: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he realises that with a full sense of responsibility I am alleging the most daring attempt to destroy vital public documents; is he aware that these working papers to which I refer are in fact the sole records of certain transactions which ought to have been, although they in fact were not, entered upon the books, and is he aware that I have in my possession many sworn affidavits from people who were actually present when the order to destroy them was given; and is he also aware that I was present when, in the presence of the Minister of Munitions and the Parliamentary Secretary, this man acknowledged he had given the order to conceal the papers from the Exchequer and Audit Department, and in view of these facts does the right hon. Gentleman not realise that it is quite impossible for me to produce my evidence except before a transparently impartial tribunal?

Mr. BONAR LAW: No. I fully recognise, and it is because I do recognise, the seriousness of these charges that I have said it is obviously not enough to make them without primâ facie evidence. If the House of Commons has not confidence that the Minister is incapable of such action as is stated, surely the least that can be done is that primâ facie evidence should be placed before- this Departmental Committee. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] It is surely not enough to make a statement. There must be some kind of primâ facie evidence, and, if a primâ facie case be given to me in any shape or form, I will undertake that it shall be thoroughly investigated.

Sir THOMAS POLSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there has been already an informal departmental inquiry into this matter?

Mr. BONAR LAW: No. I am quite certain that my hon. and gallant Friend does not make these charges without believing them to be accurate, but, equally, the Government cannot accept a mere statement as primâ facie evidence. If he will give, either to this Departmental Committee or to me, evidence which makes a primâ facie case, I will see that there is a proper investigation.

Captain LOSEBY: Does my right hon. Friend realise that I stated that in my presence and in the presence of the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary, and other highly paid officials, this man acknowledged that he had given orders to conceal these vital documents?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I can only say that I have spoken to my Noble Friend, who says that there is no foundation for these statements—not for this particular statement, because I have never heard it before—and I do say that you cannot expect any Government to institute an inquiry on a charge of that kind without some primâ facie evidence to justify it.

Captain LOSEBY: In view of the answer of the right hon. Gentleman just given, I beg leave to ask to move the Adjournment of the House in order to call attention to a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, "an order given by a highly-placed official of the Ministry of Munitions to accounts investigators and head of ledger depart-
ments to destroy vital public documents, and, in view of the continuing danger, the urgent need of an investigation by a committee of unimpeachable impartiality with judicial powers into the circuits stances surrounding this order."

The pleasure of the House having been signified, the Motion stood over, under Standing Order No. 10, until a quarter-past Eight this evening.

Captain REDMOND: In view of the Adjournment having been carried on this Motion, I beg to state that on the Adjournment to-night I shall call attention to the resignation of the commandant and adjutant of a division of the auxiliary cadets in Ireland.

DEBATES (PRIVATE MEMBERS').

Mr. WALLACE: I desire to ask you, Sir, whether it is not a fact that in any important Debate in this House the available time is largely monopolised by Members on the Front Benches, and whether you will consider the desirability of calling one ordinary private Member who undertakes to limit his speech to a maximum of 15 minutes after each speech delivered by a Member on a Front Bench. I do not know whether, with your permission—probably it is a point of Order—I may say why I put this question. Yesterday we had a Debate on a subject of the most importance which lasted seven hours. During that time only ten speakers could take part in the Debate on account of the length of the speeches. There is very strong resentment on the part of ordinary private Members who are so frequently excluded from debate. We regard you, Sir, as the custodian of the privileges of all sections of the House, and, while we receive fair consideration at your hands, we know that your calling upon Members is very largely governed by the traditions of the House. This old tradition has outlived its day, and, if arrangements could be made whereby the speeches of Members on the Front Benches could be either shorter or become fewer, it would be a misfortune which we private Members would bear with Christian fortitude and resignation.

Mr. SPEAKER: I recognise that the grievance of long speeches is felt in most
quarters of the House, but I am afraid that the hon. Member's remedy will hardly be applicable. It would make Debate impossible if, at the conclusion of a speech from the Front Bench, some unofficial Member were necessarily called upon. I endeavour as far as I can to call unofficial Members, but it would be almost impossible to conduct a Debate on the lines suggested. I have made an analysis of the speeches yesterday, and, after all, there was not such a very great difference between the average length of the unofficial Members' speeches and the average length of the speeches of the official or ex-official Members. The latter worked out at fifty minutes each and the former at thirty-three minutes each, so that there was not a very great deal of difference.

NEW MEMBER SWORN.

Ernest Evans, Esq., for the County of Cardigan.

NOTICES OF MOTION.

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION (ECONOMY).

On going into Committee of Supply on the Civil Services Estimates, to call attention to the urgent need for economical administration and to move a Resolution.—[Mr. G. Locker-Lampson."]

On going into Committee of Supply on the Civil Service Estimates, to call attention to the utter lack of economy in administration on the part of H.M. Government and to move a Resolution.—[Mr. E. Harmsworth.]

LONDON PARKS.

On going into Committee of Supply on the Civil Service Estimates, to call attention to the London Parks and to move a Resolution.—[Mr. Lorden.]

ARMY COUNCIL.

On going into Committee of Supply on the Army Estimates, to call attention to the composition of the Army Council and to move a Resolution.—[Major Sir R. Blair.]

OLD AGE PENSIONS.

On going into Committee of Supply on the Civil Service Estimates, to call attention to the administration of Old Age Pensions and to move a Resolution.—[Mr. Hogge.]

NAVY.

On going into Committee of Supply on the Navy Estimates, to call attention to the urgent necessity of increasing the strength of the Navy by laying down capital ships, and to move a Resolution.—[Lieut.-Colonel Archer-Shee.]

ARMAMENTS.

On going into Committee of Supply on the Navy Estimates, to call attention to the necessity for international agreement on armaments, and to move a Resolution.—[Mr. Neil Maclean.]

IRISH ADMINISTRATION.

On going into Committee of Supply on the Civil Service Estimates, to call attention to the administration of Ireland and to move a Resolution.—[Mr. Kiley.]

NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.

On going into Committee of Supply on the Civil Service Estimates, to call attention to the position of disabled e|-service men and of widows and dependants, and to move a Resolution.—[Major J. Edwards.]

EDUCATION.

On going into Committee of Supply on the Civil Service Estimates, to call attention to the policy of the Government in arresting the development of education and to move a Resolution.—[Mr. A. Short, Mr. Swan.]

ARMY PROMOTION.

On going into Committee of Supply on the Army Estimates, to call attention to the methods of promotion in the Army and to move a Resolution.—[Mr. G. Edwards, Mr. T. Griffiths.]

AIR SERVICE.

On going into Committee of Supply on the Air Estimates, to call attention to the present position of the Air Service in this country and to move a Resolution.— [Colonel Newman.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Mr. BONAR LAW (Leader of the House): I beg to move, "That until the end of the financial year, Government business do have precedence at every sitting."
I hope to convince the House that this Resolution is necessary. I know it may be said that with better arrangements this Resolution might have been avoided, but I shall have something to say about that later on. In my opinion, the necessity is undoubted. As the House knows, certain financial business has by Statute to be completed by the 31st of March every year. This financial business is rather more difficult to get through this year on account of the early date on which Easter falls, but in addition to that, there is a larger number of Supplementary Estimates now than is usual in an ordinary Session. The number this year is 35, which is nearly double that of a normal year before the War. I hope the House will realise that in abnormal times such as we are now going through, it is really quite impossible that the Estimates prepared for the Budget a year in advance can have anything like the accuracy which was quite possible in normal years before the War.
During the War all payments of this kind were made by the Estimates, and therefore there were no Supplementary Estimates, because they were met by Votes of Credit. As soon as the War was over, however, we went back to our old method of dealing with finance. It was not easy to arrange, and it meant a great deal of difficult work for the Treasury and the Departments; but it was done. Last year I think there were 61 Supplementary Estimates. For the present year the Chancellor of the Exchequer has used every endeavour to prevent Supplementary Estimates, and I am convinced that the Departments have done their best to avoid them. We are really passing through times so abnormal that such calculations as were quite possible before are not now possible.
I have looked into these Supplementary Estimates, and I find they are mainly due to the following causes. In the first place, there is the expenditure on account of unemployment. Secondly, expenditure
on the railways, due to the coal strike and the subsequent depression in trade, which meant a great falling off in railway receipts, and this falling off has to be made good by the Exchequer. Thirdly, there is the exceptional expenditure in connection with Ireland. Fourthly, and lastly, there is the expenditure due to the rise during the summer and autumn in the cost of commodities, which has resulted in larger bonuses and higher prices for articles purchased by the Government. I think the House will admit that in the main these causes of expenditure could not have been foreseen a year ago, and I think there is nothing to be done except to introduce these Supplementary Estimates.
I know the House will desire to fully discuss them, and it is necessary that there should be time allowed for this purpose. It may be contended, with some appearance of justification, that the necessity of taking the time in this way, which I greatly regret, should have been avoided, but there was only one way in which it could have been avoided, and that was by causing the House of Commons to meet earlier than it did. At the time we fixed the date for the assembling of Parliament, I was well aware that there would be a great difficulty in getting through our financial business. Not only was I aware of this, but I called the attention of the House to it at the time, before we had finally fixed the date of assembling. Let me remind the House of what I said on the 22nd December last. I was speaking of the congestion of the business of last year, and my hon. Friend the Member for Central Edinburgh (Mr. W. Graham) said:
You have made a bad beginning,
and then I said in reply:
My hon. Friend says that we have made a bad beginning, and I think he may mean by that, beginning so late. Members of the House of Commons have been subjected this year to an amount of pressure on their time and energy for which there is no example in previous Sessions and that is continued slavery. That is also true of every civil servant. It is my belief that if there is to be any reasonable prospect at all of getting through the necessary financial business by 31st March it will be the clear wish of the House that we should postpone the meeting until the date I have mentioned. That is from the point of view of giving people a reasonable rest to enable them to come back
to their work with increased energy."—[OFFICIAL REPORT 22nd December, 1920, col. 1801, Vol. 136.]
The House was fairly full at the time I made that statement, and I felt sure that I correctly interpreted what was the feeling of the House as a whole. Let me assure hon. Members—I do not think they need the assurance—that this late meeting of the House was not to meet, first of all, the convenience of Ministers. As a matter of fact, they are probably less affected by it than other hon. Members of the House because, in no circumstances could the recess be a holiday for them. It was, first of all, for the convenience of Members of the House of Commons itself. The House was sitting almost up to Christmas Day, and the strain put upon Members by continuous sittings and work of a heavy kind in Committee was unprecedented in the experience of this House. I am certain that, apart altogether from the convenience of Members, it really was necessary to give the longest recess possible, in order that we might come back with increased energy to face the work of the coming Session. If the strain was great upon hon. Members, it was greater upon our civil servants, and it is for them I wish to speak. When the House is sitting, a great deal of extra work is thrown on Departments, and the result is not only that civil servants are exhausted, but that they have not the time to pick up the arrears of work, and clear them away for the work that lies in front of them. It is true that the Supplementary Estimates are larger than I anticipated, but even had I known exactly the position, I do not think I should have made any change in my suggestion as to the date of the meeting of Parliament.
I have only one thing more to say. I am sure that I shall be asked to make up after Easter for the time now taken from private Members. I hope the House of Commons will not agree to that for this reason. We did it last year, and the giving of this extra time later in the Session was part of the reason for the congestion which followed in the business during the whole of the Session. I am sure it will be necessary, if we are compelled to take private Members' time now, not to extend it beyond Easter. Indeed, I think, and I hope the House will agree, that if there be time to spare for a general discussion of finance, the wishes of the House as a whole will be better
met by giving opportunities for discussion of subjects which are desired by the House than by leaving those questions to the accident of the ballot. I think the House will give the Government credit for always trying to find time for the discussion of any subject which is desired by a large number of Members, and we shall continue to do that. It is a great pity we have to ask for private Members' time, but from the point of view of the public interest, nothing is more important than that we should not be overloaded this Session, as we have been in the last three years. To have regular autumn Sessions—to have the House sitting continuously—would be ruinous to the House of Commons itself, and disastrous in every way to the public service of this country. We are going to try and avoid it this Session, and I will ask the House, as far as it can, to help us in that direction by agreeing to the Resolution which I now beg to move.

Mr. CLYNES: The right hon. Gentleman has exhibited, in moving his Resolution, a more than usual degree of coolness in facing a difficult situation. Certainly he has attempted to make a very big draw on the toleration and goodwill of the House in asking it to forego the rights of private Members between this period and Easter. He has pointed out that Easter falls early this year and that there are more than the usual number of Estimates to be got through between now and then—two reasons surely why greater foresight should have been shown on the part of the Government and why some Parliamentary action should have been taken different from that of this, the worst of all forms of Parliamentary closures. It is incorrect to say that the Members of the House desired so long a holiday that they would come back to their work so late as not to be able to get it through and to do it properly. That is no reason for the right hon. Gentleman's Motion; it is, to my mind, a reason for the contrary. He has pointed out that the times are abnormal. So they are. But really the right hon. Gentleman in asking that private Members should muzzle themselves and leave the Government to do practically what it pleases with Parliamentary time, is ignoring the very menacing situation arising particularly from existing conditions. When the right hon. Gentleman says there might be occasion, and that there would be common
agreement for calling on the Government to give specific days to definitely discuss such questions, I should like to know more particularly what he means by it. I speak for the moment in this House for a comparatively small minority. For every Labour Member who is here tries to do what he thinks is good for the country, there are seven or eight other Members to see that he does nothing at all. The Labour Members of this House, representing a very considerable body of opinion, are very much disturbed by the situation in this country, and if they desire to call for a day to discuss matters relating to the varying phases of unemployment, can we be assured we shall get that day without the common consent of the House?

Mr. BONAR LAW: Surely my right hon. Friend knows he does not need to ask that question, as I have been as ready to meet the wishes of the Labour party as of any other section, time permitting.

Mr. CLYNES: That qualification, "time permitting," leaves the decision entirely to the judgment of the right hon. Gentleman, and as he has argued to the House it is necessary to take the whole of the time of Parliament till Easter for the purpose of disposing of these Estimates, how can we feel reassured in face of that qualification? The right hon. Gentleman really is not attaching sufficient importance to the situation outside this House. It is not merely that the times are abnormal within it in regard to the number of the Estimates and the unusual amount of financial business which has to be considered, but there never was a situation outside this House similar to that which exists at this moment. Only a few days ago, from that Bench, the Minister for Labour informed the House that the official figures of the unemployed exceeded 1,000,000—to speak more accurately, 1,039,000 persons are officially reported as being out of work, and as the Minister very fairly admitted, there was in addition to that a very considerable number who, in no way registered themselves as unemployed. Taking the whole of the 600,000 affected by short time, taking the hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers not registered, taking the official minimum, and including in these figures the numbers of their households, we are
faced with the fact that there are several millions of people in this country suffering real privation and distress through the unemployment situation. Are we to expect that the whole question can be disposed of, or that it can be even seriously and appropriately handled, by such a proposal as we understand is to come before the House in the course of a day or two to further extend the unemployment insurance?
This, I have said, is the very worst of all forms of Parliamentary closure. It puts the followers and supporters of the Government in a position of not being able to exercise the ordinary rights of private Members, or of critics, for they have to give, as it were, their word of honour to the Government that the Government shall have the whole of the time for the purpose of discussing these Estimates, and further it completely disarms the Opposition and disables it from bringing forward proposals week by week, or even day by day, to deal with the important situation outside.
There are not only the difficulties relating to unemployment; there are increasing signs of industrial trouble due on one hand to employers' threats to reduce wages and on the other hand to the apparent determination of the organised workers to resist such reductions. These industrial problems are, I allege, even more pressing than some of the internal questions, and they ought to have a definite amount of Parliamentary time allotted to them week by week between now and Easter for their consideration. Will the right hon. Gentleman, instead of giving us the qualified assurance, "if time permits," agree that if it is the general will of the House these appeals may be favourably considered, and will he give us a promise of at least one day of Parliamentary time per week in order to deal with issues which clearly will arise, as it is impossible to hope that trade will have so improved or that national conditions will have so changed as to have very seriously modified the trouble relating to unemployment as it now presents itself to our mind. It is not merely in this country is there to be increasing and recurring trouble. The Debate in this House last night on the Irish question is another proof how necessary it is to increase and not diminish the freedom of Parliamentary action of
ordinary private Members. In the course of that Debate my right hon. Friend the Member for Widnes (Mr. Henderson) put a number of definite and, as we think, most important questions to the Government relating to Irish administration—relating to matters of fact as well as of policy. Not a single syllable of answer was attempted from that bench. No reply was given us, even on a Debate so important as that relating to Irish questions. We cannot therefore submit to be absolutely muzzled between this time and Easter, and in face of the outside situation we are entitled to ask that the Government will allot some definite part of Parliamentary time to deal with a situation which the right hon. Gentleman himself confesses is so abnormal as to require the special attention of private Members. I doubt whether there ever was a time in Parliamentary history when private Members were so beset and so assailed by their constituents as on these questions of unemployment and of Ireland. We cannot finish our contact with our constituents by throwing their communications into the wastepaper basket. It is clear from the size of our postbags and from the size of the meetings we address that there is a large part of the nation anxious to exact from Parliament closer attention to these questions than Parliament has yet been able to give them.
There are Members in this House who have a real fear of Parliamentary action being more and more viewed as unsuitable to meet the outside needs of the community, and I suggest that a Motion like this is as strongly in favour of a policy of outside industrial action as anything could be. What will be said by the organisations, by those involved in the payment of large sums of money week by week out of their own funds in relation to unemployment, what will be said by them when we tell them that the House of Commons has solemnly resolved to give no time, in the sense of guaranteeing any time, to enable private Members of this House to further discuss the outside unemployment situation. It will seem to them an easy thing to say, and they will say it with increasing justification, that Parliament cannot only find no remedy, but cannot even find time to discuss one, and therefore they themselves must force a remedy by ordinary industrial measures. That is a line of action I personally should deplore, but those who ad-
vocate it will have the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman on their side. He has confessed that these times are abnormal, yet he comes forward with a proposal to take away from what I would call the rank and file Members of this House any shred of power to face these questions at a time when he admits there is ten times greater cause to leave them freedom to debate these questions than ever before. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to reconsider his position. The times are abnormal, and Parliament is certainly losing the respect in which Parliaments formerly stood in the minds of an enormous number of people. That is a matter of regret on the part of Members of all parties. It is only by increasing the freedom of private Members, and by giving them more and more time freely to debate in the House the serious outside industrial situation that we can hope to win back the respect for Parliament which I believe it has lost. I do not mean that the Coalition Members of the House of Commons are lowered in the estimation of the population generally as compared with other Members of Parliament. I am speaking of the instrument of Parliament. This instrument surely was forged in order to give representatives of the constituencies, of great bodies of the electors, an opportunity freely to deal with questions as they arose.
We are faced with a situation the like of which has never troubled our country before. It is admitted that this is now not merely a party question. It is a national question, and the Government have had to accept the responsibility for it. If they could say that it was not their business, that it was the private affair of the employer, the employé, or the organisations which cover both of those great interests, there would be some justification for the House of Commons closing its gates to a discussion of these themes. They cannot, however, say that. Parliament is to be asked for a very short time further to consider the slight extension of the sum of money granted to keep these miserable people alive, but we cannot be content with that. I suggest to the Leader of the House that the safer and more secure way to secure the good will of Members of this House of all parties is to bring forward the Estimates in the ordinary manner, and let the House consider them on their merits, with the knowledge that time which they may waste—
if I may suspect the House of wasting any time—in regard to one matter will be lost when we come to discuss other matters. Whatever be the course that will be best for the freedom of Members and for the credit of Parliament, it clearly is most unwise, to say the very least of it, and an indiscreet Parliamentary move, to ask us, in face of the conditions existing outside, to accept a Motion which would deprive us of any free or full opportunity day by day to raise these questions, which, on the admission even of Ministers themselves, are becoming more and more menacing and more and more a danger to the country.

Sir D. MACLEAN: I beg to move, at the end of the Question, to add the words
but such time as is taken from private Members up to the end of the financial year shall be restored to them between Easter and Whitsuntide.
One has a great deal of sympathy with what my right hon. Friend has said as to Parliamentary opportunities for discussing the very grave questions to which he has devoted the greater part of his speech. Supposing, however, that the matter stood without any Resolution such as has been proposed, the position would be that five Tuesdays, five Wednesdays, and five Fridays, subject to the ballot, would represent the opportunities available. I do not know what would be the chances of my right hon. Friend and his colleagues in the ballot, but I would urge the importance of what has been said from this box already, and of the promise which has been given that any really urgent and important request, which commended itself to a sufficiently large number of Members of this House, in regard to the discussion of that particular topic, would, as far as possible, be granted. I should like to address myself to one or two other points which the Leader of the House made, particularly in his apologia for the finance of the Government. He said that, as far as possible, the Chancellor of the Exchequer made provision for these mistakes on the part of Departments of the Government which are called Supplementary Estimates—because a Supplementary Estimate is the result of a miscalculation. What did the Chancellor of the Exchequer say, and what provision did he make? He provided for the modest sum of £20,000,000 when he introduced his Budget. By July he had already got from this House £20,500,000.
In December last he got £40,000,000 for the Army, £9,500,000 for the Civil Service, and £8,000,000 for the Navy and Air Force. There were between fifteen and twenty of these Estimates, and their total was about £57,500,000. I said then that I felt pretty sure that the total would not be short of £77,000,000, and that the Estimates to be presented at this part of the Session would, on a moderate forecast, amount to £15,000,000. In that I was more than £20,000,000 out, because the total Supplementary Estimates now included in the White Paper, together with one or two which may perhaps follow, will be very little short of £35,000,000. Adding that to the £77,000,000 already granted, we have a total of Supplementary Estimates for this financial year of some £110,000,000.
That is a position upon which we are entitled strongly to challenge the Government. What prescience or foresight can there be in that? It is impossible to ask us to believe that this vast sum could not have been foreseen. I agree that we did not know, although we ought to have known, the proportions of the great unemployment problem and what it would cost us, but I would beg hon. Members, in the discharge of their duty to their constituents and to the country, to go through these Supplementary Estimates as submitted. They are here for the purpose of going through these Supplementary Estimates and understanding them, and if they do so they will see what a vast range of gross miscalculation, financial inefficiency and reckless extravagance they disclose. My right hon. Friend says that he wants time to discuss them between now and Easter. Of course he is bound to say that. I stand by what I said at the end of the last Session, namely, that the House ought to make this Session predominantly a financial Session, and that as little legislation as possible ought to come before the House, either from the Government or from private Members. What is going to happen between now and Easter, in the time which, no doubt, my right hon. Friend will succeed in getting? These Supplementary Estimates require the most careful examination, and I would ask my right hon. Friend to tell us, when he comes to reply, what legislation he proposes to introduce between now and Easter—what Bills are to be submitted for Second reading. Their discussion will take days. There is the railway Bill—

BONAR LAW: Not before Easter.

5.0 P.M.

Sir D. MACLEAN: I would ask my right hon. Friend to tell us, when he comes to reply, what is the programme of the Government with regard to Legislation between now and Easter, so that we may have some idea of what time the Government propose to give to the discussion of these overwhelming Supplementary Estimates. In view of the immense importance of a careful examination of finance, nothing but the most urgent measures should be submitted for Second Heading between now and Easter. The decks ought to be clear as far as possible for finance and the great and important questions which will be raised in connection with it. Four separate Votes on Account will have to be taken—for the Army, the Navy, the Air Force and the Civil Service. Then there will be two Consolidated Fund Bills—one on account of the Railway Estimates, for which the money has to be found at some time between now and the 15th or 20th April. That Bill will have to go through all its stages. I quite agree that at that stage the matter itself cannot very well be discussed, if we are allowed ample discussion of the other administrative proposals which come before the House. That will depend upon the time that is given for Debate. If all those most important financial subjects have to be submitted in that way, what time will there be for the introduction of highly controversial Bills? I am certain that I am voicing the feeling of the House as a whole when I say that it will deeply resent any attempt on the part of the Government to guillotine or closure financial discussion between now and Easter. I agree that, if there is any gross misuse of Debate, those who indulge in it must take the consequences, but I feel certain that that will not be the case. Any attempt to force these matters through, or to debate them in the small hours of the morning, will be a gross dereliction of the duty of this House in regard to these most important questions. Then I would urge that the Votes on Account should not be for an amount which will go further than the real necessities of the case. If, for instance, the Government should ask for Votes on Account for the services to which I have referred to an amount which carries them on, say, till July, I say that that is too long. It takes away from the House the proper control which it ought
to have over these great spending Departments. There ought to be no further sums taken than are sufficient to meet the urgent necessities for pay and matters of that kind in connection with the Army, the Navy, the Air Force and the Civil Service.

Commander BELLAIRS: You cannot get control once the policy Vote is disposed of.

Sir D. MACLEAN: The Estimates will not be laid before the 31st March. It is only when you get the Estimates laid you know what the policy is with regard to these great spending services. This House should retain control and not allow the Government to get more money than is absolutely necessary on these Votes on Account, and I hope hon. Members will watch that as carefully as they possibly can. If they want more money on account, let them come back to this House and ask for it. With regard to the question of private Member's time, nothing is more destructive of the prestige of and interest in the House of Commons than to completely obliterate the interest of private Members in its proceedings, and for them to get the idea, that they are here merely as vote-recording machines with no opportunity of expressing their opinion on current problems. That is one of the real reasons why the House of Commons is to some extent losing interest and prestige. Men go from the House of Commons and say they have little or no interest in its proceedings, that they have no chance of expressing freely and without the control of the Whips their opinions on many topics of real interest that come before the House by means of private Members' Motions on Tuesdays or Wednesdays, or in private Bills.

Sir F. BANBURY: They will get it on the Estimates.

Mr. J. JONES: You will be in then.

Sir D. MACLEAN: Therefore I suggest to my right hon. Friend that he ought to restore to hon. Members the time which they have lost between now and Easter and make it up to them as he did before between Easter and Whitsuntide. I think I carry a large amount of support from the general body of the House when I press that upon him. There is one other point, and it is this. I think the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer said he was about to set up the Committee on National Expenditure soon. I hope he will do it very early. The Reports from that Committee last year were of great interest and use to the House, but the worst of it was they came so late; the mischief was done; and at the approaching end of the Session, in the early days of July, when the Government pressure was at its height, hopes were raised by the Leader of the House that time would be given. As time went on we found that no such opportunity could be afforded, and the only thing was for the Press to take the matters up or for us to do what we could in the way of Question and Answer in the House of Commons. The real work of that Committee never came before the House in the way it ought. This Committee should be appointed, not at an early date, but at once, and should get to work immediately.
I do not know whether there is any use of urging this, but I do it as strongly as I can, namely, the necessity for an Estimates Committee. I think such a proposal should be accompanied by the working out of the suggestion of my right hon. Friend (Mr. Acland), who was Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee last year, and who, I am sure, the House will regret is unable to find time for the Chairmanship of that most important body this year. What he suggested was this, that instead of flinging these Estimates at the general Estimates Committee the Government ought to appoint some highly-trained official who can be easily found in the Civil Service, acquainted with what is called the run of Government Departments, with a couple of assistants. He could go through these Estimates and present to that Estimates Committee his report on them, or, failing that, it would be very much better if a report of that kind came before the House direct—anything rather than the futile, unbusinesslike, in-efficient way in which we deal with the question at the present moment. I suggested to my right hon. Friend (Mr. Bonar Law) last year that what the Government ought to do was this, while your total expenditure has gone up from a 1,200,000,000 or 1,400,000,000 Budget, and Civil Service Estimates have gone up alone from £87,500,000 pre-
War to something like £550,000,000, we should, instead of having 20 days for financial discussion, have 40 days. I suppose that appeal will fall upon deaf ears. How far is my right hon. Friend going to meet us in this matter? In the Standing Orders he can give us 23 days. I suggest that the very least thing he can do is to give us these three extra days. He has promised a minimum programme of legislation. That is a definite undertaking. He ought to give the maximum opportunity for financial discussion. My right hon. Friend nods assent to that. What does it mean? What is he going to give? A pious agreement amounts to nothing. What is the practical undertaking which he can give to enable the House of Commons to discharge some part of its most important functions? My Motion really amounts to this. By Standing Order 4, "Arrangement of Public Business" under Heading (c), after Easter Government business shall take precedence during the whole of Tuesday. It really means giving Tuesday back to the private Members, because he has got Wednesday and he has got Friday. That does not seem to be an extravagant request to make, and I accordingly urge it very strongly upon him.

Mr. RONALD McNEILL: There is, I think, a traditional and time-honoured function of the Leader of the Opposition in this House. It is not always the same. The general duty of the Leader of the Opposition is to oppose the Government, but there are occasions, I think, when his duty is to say a ceremonial ditto to the Leader of the House. I must say it struck me, while listening to the two speeches of the two right hon. Gentlemen, both of whom lead somebody opposite, that they were dividing these functions between them. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Miles Platting (Mr. Clynes) began in the time-honoured way by opposing the proposal from this side of the Table, and then my right hon. Friend followed, until he moved his Amendment at the end, by saying a ceremonial ditto, because, after all, the greater part of his speech was directed to show how superlatively necessary it is for the Government to take the time they are asking. All that he said about the magnitude of finance and the necessity for its thorough investigation and discussion in the House amounted really to a confirmation of what had
already fallen from the Leader of the House, that under the existing circumstances, however they may be accounted for and whoever may be to blame for them, there is no choice for the Government but to take the time of the House. I do not believe the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Miles Platting would have made the speech he did, if it had not been for the necessity imposed upon him by the leadership of his party. I do not quite know how many opposing parties there are opposite. I see the Noble Lord (Lord R. Cecil) there. The Front Opposition Bench appears to be like a penny bus, because it accommodates so many opposing parties, and it is very difficult to enumerate what they are. But, at any rate, the two right hon. Gentlemen who have already spoken may be taken for the moment at least as the two leaders of the chief Opposition. What did the right hon. Member for Miles Platting say in opposition to the Government's proposal? He made a very eloquent speech about the unrest out-of-doors, about the very deplorable amount of unemployment; he alleged that no answer was given in the Debate yesterday to charges in regard to the Government of Ireland; and altogether roughly and rapidly outlined the general condition of the country outside. What had all that to do with the taking of private Members' time? Did the right hon. Gentleman really imagine that if he could have defeated this Motion that these matters to which he referred would have had any more substantial opportunity of being ventilated in this House? Does he imagine that the ballot for private Members' Resolutions or for private Bills would have given the Labour party other opportunities for discussing unemployment, or anyone an opportunity of discussing Ireland? We all know nothing of the sort. What really would have happened would have been that some hon. Members might have had an opportunity—it might have been my right hon. Friend (Sir F. Banbury)—to introduce a Bill for the better treatment of dogs. I do not wish to suggest that that is not an important matter, but it is not the matter of unemployment, and it is not the government of Ireland. Some other hon. Member might have introduced a Bill for prohibiting the importation of plumage, important but not of the first-rate importance that the right hon.
Gentleman refers to. Those are the sort of questions which are brought up either by Resolution or Bill in private Member's time. The right hon. Gentleman (Sir D. Maclean) also repeated the time-honoured complaint about the destruction of private Members' time, and told us that it is the time which private Members have for perfectly free discussion, which really is the true House of Commons. I am not going to controvert that proposition. I have heard it made ever since I have been in the House, and I am sure it was made many a long year before that. It is really a conventional complaint. I have no doubt there was a time when it might perfectly sincerely have been made, and there was some reality behind it. But certainly since I have been in the House I am forced to the conclusion that such time as private Members have at their disposal, not altogether for Bills, but at all events for Resolutions, is very largely waste of the time of the House.
The really important business of the House is always, and always will be, however much we dislike it, in the future under the direction and guidance of the Government. Whenever a Bill of any real importance is introduced by a private Member, if there is really a desire on the part of the House to get it carried into law it is almost always done by being starred and made part of the Government business. I enjoyed the Resolutions which we used to debate as much as anyone, and I always agreed that the real interest or the fun of the House depended on those Tuesday evenings when we resolved ourselves, not into Committee of Supply, but into a debating society, and discussed matters of very inconsiderable importance with complete freedom and a good deal of frivolity. But really the right hon. Gentleman, in using his position to echo that old and unreal complaint that the House of Commons is going to lose credit and is going to be degraded in the eyes of the public because we are not able to have those private Members' discussions on Tuesday evenings, is really, I think, either stretching his own imagination too far or else making too large a draft on the credulity of inexperienced Members of the House. I quite recognise the necessity for this Motion. I entirely agree with what my right hon. Friend said, that it would have been very much more obnoxious to the vast majority of the House
if they had been called together a week or ten days earlier. That would have been a very much greater loss to the great majority of private Members than the loss of their Tuesday evenings until the end of the financial year, and I really think the opposition which has been so far urged to it from the Front Bench opposite has been largely traditional, it has been ceremonial, and merely because it is necessary to say something from the other side of the box in opposition to what is said on this; and, however reluctant we may be to lose the gifts of the lighter side of the House, I believe the vast majority of the House will recognise the necessity for it and will cordially support the Motion.

Mr. ACLAND: I wish to make two points only. The first is, that I am perfectly certain that until the Government give way on the question of assisting this House in the examination of Estimates, that matter will continue to be pressed, and therefore it will be very much better for the Leader of the House to turn his great ability into the channel of seeing how it can be done instead of, I am afraid, constantly explaining to us why it cannot be done. It was a perfectly sound point when brought up by the right hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury), and it remains a sound point that the Committees of this House on Estimates are just as hopeless really to produce the best results in helping this House as the Committee of Public Accounts would be without the assistance of the Controller and Auditor-General in the matter of the accounts which come before the House. I hope the Government will consent to try to work out a method of doing that instead of opposing it. Estimates become more and more complicated, and more and more important as this country realises more and more that it is comparatively a poor country very heavily taxed, instead of being, as we were before the War, a comparatively rich country rather moderately taxed, and if there is a method of helping the House which is put forward, not as a party method at all, but by every committee which is looking into it one after another, year after year, it is a matter that the Government should treat carefully. The only other thing I want to ask, in no controversial spirit, is this: Can the Leader of the House hold out any possi-
bility of giving time—not before Easter; I agree about that—for any discussion of the recent Report of the Public Accounts Committee?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I believe after Easter.

Mr. ACLAND: I have been in touch with the right hon. Gentleman with regard to time before Easter, and I accept from him that that is not possible. I shall not be Chairman of the new Committee, but I think they would like that on their behalf—they have not yet been set up—a claim should be pegged out at once for half days as soon after Easter as possible, and I understand that could be arranged.

Mr. BONAR LAW: indicated assent.

Major C. LOWTHER: I understand this question really is one which principally affects the private Member. The private Member is asked to surrender his time until Easter, in order to facilitate Government business, and principally finance. Some of us on this Bench would be the last to oppose such a request of the Government, because we feel that the more adequate and full the discussions on finance the better it is for the business of the country generally. But I think we are entitled to ask whether, in the event of our compliance with that request, they will give us a practical assurance that at the end of the Session we shall not have turned upon us a flood of legislation which we shall be called upon to discuss at very short notice, because if that indeed were the case it would seem that our sacrifice at present would be of little use. It is becoming rather sad to think that the argument in support of every abnormal procedure is based upon the fact that we are living in abnormal times. We might almost say that we are living in normal times of abnormality. I believe most private Members will support the Government in their demand, but I hope they will see their way not to rush us into ill-digested legislation towards the end of the Session.

Mr. MYERS: I desire to enter my protest against the House being asked to pass this Motion. One feels that for the Government to appropriate the greater part of the time between now and Easter will not give those with whom I am associated the opportunity they desire to
deal with the great question of the day. I know there will be difference of opinion upon the matter, but my opinion, based upon a rather close association with the working-class movement, is that the unemployed problem transcends in public importance any other question which is before the country at the moment. If the Motion is carried, and we are denied the opportunity of drawing attention to this great question, the difficulty and trouble which prevails in the country will be intensified. I can quite understand the psychology of the House of Commons not recognising the importance of this question, but if the bulk of hon. Members were closer up with the industrial constituencies and the industrial situation which is prevailing, they would need no conversion to this aspect of the matter. The facts which have been given by the Minister of Labour are striking enough in themselves. He told us that 1,039,000 men and women were registered at the Labour Exchanges, that thousands were out of employment who were not registered, that 368,000 of these were ex-service men, and the other 600,000 people were on systematic short time. The difficulty of the situation which is involved in that plain and simple statement is tremendous. People walking the streets without a livelihood is surely one of the questions this House of Commons ought to be ready to tackle at this time.
We are going to find time, according to the King's Speech, for dealing with an Anti-Dumping Bill. I suppose that is the result of pressure from the Federation of British Industries. Included in the financial business that is to come before the House, if the Government programme is carried out, is the question of dividends for railway shareholders which were guaranteed on the basis of the 1913 net receipts. They claim that they are entitled to this amount for the last financial year. Dividends that the railways have not been able to earn have to be paid to the railway shareholders. The House of Commons will find time to discuss that. When it was mentioned a moment ago, it was met with assent and approval from various sides of the House. If we can find time to discuss the dividends of railway shareholders that the railways have not earned, the House ought to be able to find time to discuss this great question of the unemployed, and I am afraid that if this House does not find time to deal with the
question there are other agencies in the country that will. That is my fear. I do not desire to see that happen; but we are entitled to sound this note of warning.
The organised Labour movement has the matter under consideration. A great conference will be held to-morrow in the City, representing the great organised Labour movement—an adjourned conference for the discussion of the question. They are inquiring what is being done and what is going to be done, and all they have been able to ascertain up to the present is that the Government is prepared to give an extra 2s. or 3s. a week to unemployed benefit. Time and time again we have declared, and we repeat, that that is no solution of the unemployed problem. A pound to-day is only worth half the amount it was worth in pre-War days, and a pound a week to a working man to-day is nothing more nor less than semi-starvation. With all these factors in mind we declare emphatically that this question is one which will not be ignored. If the House of Commons is not familiar with the ramifications of the question it ought to make itself acquainted with the position. When we can count by the million our own fellow-countrymen, men, women and children, the wage-earners of the country, walking the streets of our industrial towns without an opportunity to earn a livelihood, surely that is a grave question, national in its character and importance. I re-echo the sentiments expressed by the right hon. Member for Miles Platting (Mr. Clynes) that the time of this House should be so allocated that those who are entitled to speak on behalf of the industrial workers shall have a proper opportunity of bringing the ramifications of this great problem of unemployment to the notice of the House and the country.

Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSON: I agree with my hon. Friend (Major C. Lowther) that economy in words is as good as economy in anything, and I only rise to ask the Financial Secretary to the Treasury a few questions. I do hope that the Government may not have closed their minds entirely to the proposition made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Peebles (Sir D. Maclean). Generally one can gather from the countenance of Members of the Government whether they are going to give way or not, but they have preserved a stony countenance up till now, and I am rather afraid that they
have hardened their hearts. I was very sorry to hear what was said by the hon. and learned Member for Canterbury (Mr. R. McNeill). I am sorry that he is not in the House, because time and again I have heard him defend the rights of private Members, and I do not know why at this moment, unless he is going to pass over to the front bench, he should suddenly make up his mind that this is a conventional question, a conventional attack upon the Government. I do not think it is at all conventional. I cannot imagine anything less conventional than to try to preserve the rights of private Members. If private Members do not take every opportunity to defend their rights in this House, very soon private Members will be left with no rights at all. I should like to join with one hon. Member in saying that so far as I am aware there was no obstruction in Debate during the past year. I was in the 1910 Parliament, and certainly we had obstruction then. There was a great deal of obstruction in the 1911 Parliament onwards, but during last year there was less obstruction than I have ever seen before during the time I have been in Parliament. Therefore, the Government ought to do its utmost to meet the wishes of private Members.
I gather from this Motion that until the end of the financial year, Government business shall have precedence at every sitting. I presume that that does not cut out Motions for the Adjournment. Supposing at question time someone moves the Adjournment of the House: I take it that that question would not be ruled out? [HON. MEMBERS: "NO."] I feel that the only excuse the Government has for this Motion is that no controversial business outside finance should be brought before us; but to-day at question time the Chancellor of the Exchequer told us that the Revenue Bill was to be introduced almost immediately. I should like to know whether it is to be introduced and to pass its Second Reading before Easter. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said that it was going to a Committee upstairs on account of its extraordinary uncontroversial character; but I say that that Bill is going to be one of the most controversial Bills in the history of this House. It is a Bill carrying into effect the recommendations of the Royal Commission, and one of those recommenda-
tions is that we should change the whole of the local administration of Income Tax, and take away the buffer that now exists between the Treasury and the taxpayer ill the shape of the collector of taxes. I should like to know whether before Easter we are going to have foisted upon us the First Reading of the Revenue Bill, because if we are going to have that kind of legislation, which is going to be extremely controversial, I shall certainly vote against this Motion.
The Select Committee on National Expenditure has been referred to, and I join with my right hon. Friend the Member for Peebles in asking the Government not only to appoint this Committee but, for the sake of the House, to carry out some of its past recommendations. Do let us have Estimates given in some sort of shape that Members of the House of Commons can understand them. That recommendation was made two years ago but nothing has been done, and we cannot understand the Estimates. This Committee, taking evidence two years ago, were told by the Accounting Officer of the Ministry of Munitions,
I do not think the Estimates as furnished to Parliament are worth the paper they are written on from the point of view of Parliamentary control.
One of the recommendations of this Parliamentary Committee was that the whole shape of the Estimates should be altered and drawn out in such a way that hon. Members should be able to understand the Estimates they are asked to debate. That has not been done, and I do not know why. I cannot see the use of appointing a Parliamentary Committee which labours week after week and month after month and year after year, and when they present their Report absolutely nothing is done. So far as I know not one single recommendation made by that Committee has been carried out up till now. Therefore, it is really a farce. If my right hon. Friend chooses to do what I suggest, he could have it done. I suppose it would be out of Order for me to mention other recommendations of the Committee. This is purely an Estimate question. If my right hon. Friend does not carry out the other recommendations of the Committee, he could carry out that recommendation and let us have the Estimates in a shape in which we can understand them. I hope he will be able to reply favourably on these points.

Commander BELLAIRS: The various sectional opposition has had a good innings, four representatives in succession having spoken. The points raised by Members of the Labour party with regard to dealing with questions of unemployment were hardly germane to this Motion. [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes!"] In any case I cannot see how the taking of private Members' time is going to prevent the discussion of unemployment, because if hon. Members are successful in the Ballot they could deal with the question of unemployment either by Bills or Motions. The Government have not any option in regard to the Railway Bill. That is compulsory upon them. It is part of the agreement made long before this Government came into power, and they have to carry it out. My real object in rising is to explain an interruption I made during the speech of the right hon. Member for Peebles. He suggested that Votes on Account should only be for a short period of time, and not so far as July. The real point is that by the end of this financial year the House of Commons entirely loses control of policy, because all the policy Votes, such as Votes 1 of the Army, Navy and Air Estimates, are introduced and passed before the end of March. In the old days, I think up lo the eighties, we used frequently to carry the policy discussion on to Vote 2, and if the Opposition really want to get control of expenditure they must keep the policy Vote before the House of Commons for a longer period than the end of the old financial year. Last year we lost control of the Navy Estimates by the 23rd March, and we lost control of the Army Estimate so far as policy was concerned still earlier. So far as this Motion is concerned, I can hardly see how the Government have any option. They cannot control the fact that Easter falls at an early period and before the end of the financial year. They cannot control the fact that we have double the number of Supplementary Estimates. The right hon. Member for Peebles said that it was lack of foresight. One might as well say that it was lack of foresight for the Liberal Government not to anticipate the War, in which they have spent £7,000,000,000 of Supplementary Estimates. [HON. MEMBERS: "So it was!"] I agree, it was lack of foresight, and in these particular cases we are inheriting the legacies of that War. All these Supplementary Estimates are legacies that we have inherited from the War.
In order to prevent this occurring again the House of Commons might some day or other legislate for a fixed Easter, or the Government might change the financial year. The American financial year ends, I believe, in June, and I think it is a matter for serious consideration whether it is not desirable for the country itself and certainly for Parliament to have a fixed Easter and an alteration of the present financial year.

Mr. T. P. O'CONNOR: I belong to one of those sections of this House on whom a great deal of cold water, not to say contempt, has been thrown in this Debate. I was amazed by the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury. If he were a good Catholic instead of a sound Orangeman, I would describe him as more papal than the Pope, and more governmental than the Government. He said that all this talk about the rights of private Members was merely foolishness, and futile, that really the business of the House of Commons was in the hands of the Government, and almost the sole duty of private Members was to accept gratefully anything that came from the Government table. I do not know whether anything is coming to my hon. Friend from the Government table. Nobody will be more delighted than I shall if that be the case, but I cannot understand why he should now give to England the love that he has so long given to Ulster. I will not go into speculation on that matter, especially as I believe there will be more officers than Members of the Ulster Parliament. He says, "What is the use of this discussion? It is a mere waste of time." My hon. Friend must be very little acquainted with the history of the House of Commons if he does not know that some of the greatest measures of reform passed by this House have had their origin in these futile and academic discussions.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Peebles (Sir D. Maclean) and other Members have alluded to the legislative programme of the Government. I think that that is taking this comic Government a little too tragically. I do not think that you will ever see any of the legislation mentioned in the Speech from the Throne, or that, if you do, any of these measures will survive a very laborious stillbirth. Therefore that is not my reason for finding fault with the Govern-
ment. I do not accept the statement of the hon. and gallant Gentleman who has just spoken that you have no more right to criticise this Government for want of foresight with regard to expenditure than the Liberal Government that did not foresee the expenditure of the War. The War is over two years, and that ought to have given time enough even to a Government like this to survey the financial future with a little more accuracy than they have shown. I object also because of the purposes for which some of the money asked to be voted is to be spent. There is a very large Supplementary Estimate for instance for Ireland. It brings back a feeling of astonishment which I have often had, that so clever a race as the English always seem to lose their senses when they touch anything Irish. Here you are robbing yourselves of your own time and your own liberty because you will not give the Irish people liberty to deal with their own affairs.
But I come back to my main point, the rights of private Members. There are two conceptions of the functions of the House of Commons which we find among its Members. One is that of the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. R. McNeill), which, brought to its last extremity, would mean that the House of Commons should be a mere recording machine for registering the proposals of the Government. I utterly repudiate that view of the functions of the House of Commons. Legislation is a good thing in its way sometimes. I would be quite satisfied if this Government, as long as it stays in office, never brought forward any legislation. All of it will be bad. I believe that the right hon. Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) thinks that all legislative proposals are unnecessary or mischievous. I do not go to that extreme, but I do protest against the doctrine that this House is merely a legislative machine. That is not its greatest function and not its most useful function. Its greatest function is that it is the Grand Inquisition of the nation. If we regard as sacred the rights of a free Press, it is on the ground that, in order to preserve the purity of administration and justice and fair play, it is absolutely necessary to have everything which a Government does subjected to full criticism and brought to the full knowledge of the people of the country. And if this
House of Commons is to hold to the place in the mind of the nation which, in spite of many changes, I still think it holds to a very large extent, though not to as great an extent as in former years, it must be because every British subject shall feel that in this House there will be an opportunity of remedying any grievance from which he suffers.
Compare that with the policy of this Motion. The rights of private Members for discussion are curtailed to the most infinitesimal degree. There is no opportunity for raising these poignant and ever-pressing questions which arise in a nation so large as this. I saw a Minister condemned, and I saw nearly a whole Ministry shaken, by what was called the Cass Case. A poor milliner passing through Regent Street was treated, as it appeared to the public, rather harshly and unjustly by a police constable. The Home Secretary of that day, afterwards Lord Llandaff, did not take up the case warmly. A gentleman, who is now a distinguished judge, Mr. Atherley Jones, raised the case in debate. I never saw a greater vindication of the power and effectiveness of this Imperial Parliament than when a Ministry was shaken rather than that a poor friendless woman should be deprived of her liberty. That is a function of the House of Commons which people almost forget. They ask, "What is the Government going to bring in? What is its policy about the House of Lords, and about this, that, and the other?" Much more important is it to know that in this House of Commons every man has the right to be heard and, if he is wrong, that he has a chance of being righted. These being my views, I am opposed to the proposal of the Government, and I hope that the few words which I have said on behalf of the rights of the private Member will be echoed by other Members, and that we shall have none of these extraordinary doctrines, expressed by the Member for the St. Augustine's Division, that it is for the Government to legislate and for us to obey.

Mr. MARRIOTT: I am not going to follow my hon. Friend opposite in his eloquent maintenance of the rights of private Members, but in a few sentences I do want cordially to join in the appeal which has been made by the right hon. Member for Peebles (Sir D. Maclean) that the Government should appoint at
the very earliest possible moment the Committee which this afternoon it has undertaken to appoint. In the last two or three years the Select Committee on National Expenditure has not been appointed until about Easter, and, speaking as one who served on that Committee in the last two Parliaments, I want to impress on the House the fact that a very great deal of the work of the Committee has been frustrated because of the late date at which it has been appointed. Then there was an appeal by the right hon. Member for Camborne (Mr. Acland) that, in addition, to the Select Committee on Expenditure, we should also have appointed the Committee on Estimates. I have naturally a great deal of sympathy with that proposal, and I think that it ought to be accepted. I am certain that we shall never have a scientific examination of the Estimates put forward by the Executive until we have some such machinery as that which was adumbrated by the right hon. Member for Camborne. The Government, from their own point of view, are asking the House of Commons to save time for the discussion of the Estimates of the Government. What will save the time of the Government and the House of Commons more effectually than acceding to the request which has been made for the appointment of this Committee?
The Government have made an appeal this afternoon to the House to assent to this Motion on condition—there is an implied condition—that we are not to have an Autumn Session. On that point I want to say, speaking as a very unofficial and a very private Member, that I do think that the Government are absolutely right. I want to put it to the House that assent should be given to the Motion of the Government for a reason which has not been suggested in the Debate this afternoon. After all, we have not only got to consider the position of the Legislature in this matter, but we have to consider the position of the Executive as well. I suggest that a good deal of time of the House of Commons is wasted because of the condition in which Bills are brought before the House by members of the Executive. One reason why we waste so much time in this House and in Committee is because the Executive has not got a reasonable time to think out its legislative proposals. Therefore, it is out of consideration for the permanent
officials of the Government and the Executive, and, most of all, for the time of the House of Commons, that I urge acceptance of the Motion which the Government has made. But I do want to appeal to my right hon. Friend (Mr. Baldwin) to give us an assurance which was not given this afternoon by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Chancellor of the Exchequer told us that the Government did propose to reappoint the Select Committee on National Expenditure, but he very carefully avoided a portion of the question which I put to him, as to whether, if so appointed, the Committee would be appointed at an early date in order that it may consider and report upon some of the Estimates for the current year. I hope that this will be done, and that the Committee may be appointed at a date when it will really be able to serve the interests of the House of Commons.

6.0 P.M.

Sir F. BANBURY: I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green (Mr. G. Locker-Lampson) that there is no possible chance of my going to the Treasury Bench as a result of my supporting the Government on this Motion. I also assure the hon. Member for the Scotland Division (Mr. O'Connor) that he can hardly include me among those Members whose sole object in this House is to support the Government, because I have on many occasions when I thought them wrong—as, I am sorry to say, they are very often—shown what I thought by recording my vote in the Lobby against them. The hon. Member for Wood Green is wrong in thinking that the Government have not in any way acceded to the request put forward by the Committee over which I have the honour to preside, the Select Committee on National Expenditure, as to the form of the accounts. I should not like to say off-hand how far they have followed our recommendations, but they certainly have adopted our recommendations to a considerable degree with regard to the Army Vote. I am not sure about the others. The right hon. Member for Platting (Mr. Clynes) made an impassioned speech against this proposal on the ground that he could not bring forward the question of unemployment. The right hon. Gentleman had two days last week to bring forward that question. This Motion, if carried, will not deprive him of further opportunities between now and the end
of March. Unless I am misinformed, there is a Supplementary Vote for the unemployed. That is one opportunity. Then, when the Vote on Account for the Civil Service comes up, there is another opportunity. There is also the Consolidated Fund Bill. That provides an opportunity of discussing practically everything. Whether or not the right hon. Gentleman would be in any better position if the Government Motion was not carried I think is very doubtful, because Fridays will be given to private Members' Bills. A very prominent member of the Radical party one day some years ago described private Members' Bills to me. He said: "All private Members' Bills are bad; the Radical Members' Bills are worse than the worst of the lot." The right hon. Member for Peebles (Sir D. Maclean) was right to attach very great importance to the discussion of financial questions. The first function which the House of Commons has to perform now is not legislation. The most useful and necessary function is the examination of the financial proposals of the Government. They are at the root of unemployment. Hon. Members will gain the double advantage from the Motion of the Government, because they will have an opportunity of criticising the financial proposals of the Government. I was astonished to find that the right hon. Member for Peebles had decided to vote against a Motion which would give the House the opportunity he desires.

Sir D. MACLEAN: I did not indicate any such intention.

Sir F. BANBURY: I am glad, then, that we shall be in the same Lobby supporting the Government when this goes to a Division. I believe we are discussing an Amendment, which is that after Easter a day will be given to private Members. I hope the Government will not accede to that. After Easter there will be again a large number of financial questions. There are two or three very important Bills which must be passed and go to the House of Lords. We must not forget the Budget. There is the Railway Bill and there is the Revenue Bill. I shall have great pleasure in supporting the Government on their Motion, provided that they do not give way on anything.

Mr. J. JONES: To those of us who are new Members of the House it is very interesting to listen to the older Members giving us lectures on constitutional procedure. In so far as we happen not to know, it is very desirable sometimes to get to know from the Members who do know. I was led to understand that when a Member was elected to this House he had certain constitutional rights guaranteed him, because he represented a portion of the population of Great Britain. In spite of the opinions expressed by some hon. Members I suggest that the constitutional history of Great Britain owes as much to the efforts of private Members as to the efforts of any of those Ministers who have drawn salaries and occupied offices under the Crown. I would also remind some hon. Members that the only protection the Member has is the allocation of Parliamentary time for the discussion of public questions. We who represent the Labour party are interested in certain problems which we suggest are the most important problems that ever affected the lives of the people we represent. A large proportion of the population to-day is suffering not merely from unemployment, but from under-employment. Wherever we go in any great industrial centre we are asked questions not as to the financial affairs or the administration of individual Departments, but what we are going to do about the unemployed, about Ireland, about matters affecting the immediate personal interests of the people we represent.
Upon finance, of course, I am not an expert. My only knowledge can be summed up in my appreciation of the fact that 19s. 11¾d. is not £1. I cannot enter into a contest with those who claim to know all about finance. We are asking that a definite amount of Parliamentary time shall be allocated, so that matters of great public importance can be raised, if necessary, owing to the changing circumstances which develop from day to day. We are to have an Amendment of the Unemployment Insurance Act. We were informed the other day that we would not have an opportunity of moving Amendments to that Bill. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] We were informed in reply to questions that we could not increase the amounts under the Bill. They are the very Amendments in which we are interested. We do not ask for doles. The working class movement has
never asked to receive money for nothing; we leave that to the gentlemen on the other side, the rich unemployed. We were anxious to move Amendments which would increase the amount of the benefit under the Bill, because we claim that 18s. a week is semi-starvation, but we were told that we dare not touch the question of finance with a 40-foot pole. We must take the Bill for granted and simply accept it. It is a case of:
God bless the Boss and his relations;
And keep us in our proper stations.
Our is to be only ceremonial opposition. I have had very little to do with ceremony, except at my baptism, and then I had not much to say about it. We ask that the whole of the rights of the minority shall not be taken away. Hon. Members have said what we can do. They have not told us what we cannot do. We may raise matters on various Votes. What will be the result? We will get the usual explanation from the Minister in charge and then everything in the garden will be lovely. A docile majority will go into the Lobbies, and the great minority will not count. It is a very poor protection for a minority in this House merely to have the right to raise questions on the financial propositions of the Government. One would imagine that there was nothing to be discussed except finance. The right hon. Member for Peebles comes from a country where they are great experts on finance. Evidently he is one of the lineal descendants of the gentleman who used a wart on the back of his neck for a collar stud. Being obsessed with the idea of economy, he has forgotten that as a result of the experiment septic poisoning set in and the experimenter died. So far as economy goes, I have always practised it, because I never had an opportunity of being extravagant, and the people I represent have had to spend most of their time making both ends meet. I am rather suspicious that a large number of those who preach economy in this House do not want real economy, but want to hang on as long as they can to the ill-gotten gains of which they have previously been in receipt, and they think that if they can save money by keeping back necessary legislation they can do something in their own interest. We never hear of economy when we are discussing Army Estimates, Navy Estimates or Air Force Estimates. All we hear then is of a desire for more effici-
ency, more machines of war, bigger battleships, more aeroplanes and the means whereby human life can be destroyed.
We Labour Members who supported the War supported it because we believed it would be a war to end war. We believed the time had arrived when the people's experience during this War would lead them to the conclusion that the destruction of human life was the most wasteful effort a nation could be engaged in. I venture to suggest that when we hear the lessons on economy that will be introduced into the Debates on the Estimates we shall not hear of economy in these matters, but we shall hear about economy in houses, in education, and in the administration of public health. These will be the political stunts that will be played, as against the real needs of the people in matters affecting their everyday life. Unemployment is more serious than ever at the present moment, and in my own union 36,000 of our members have notice to finish work next Friday and Saturday, and we are only one union. We have a million and a half unemployed men and women now, not reckoning boys and girls under 16 who are also unemployed but do not get any benefit. I will undertake to say that at the present moment there are 2,000,000 men, women, boys and girls unemployed in the United Kingdom, and they are being added to every week. We are asking for a real opportunity to discuss matters of this kind.
Then there is the question of Ireland. Every day something fresh is happening and some new outrage is taking place, and every day the constitutional rights of the citizens are being denied, and outrage and murder are taking place without protection for the common citizen. Have we not a right to claim that in these important times, when we have a great crisis, economic and political, facing the nation, we should have more time and not less for the discussion of these matters? If we have to work overtime, why should we not? We get paid whether we work or not, and the unemployed do not get paid when they do not work. They get a dole. I suggest that there is plenty of time that Parliament could devote to these matters, even if they had to increase their own working time and Members came earlier in the day. They might spend a few hours every day in discussing these matters which so vitally affect the interests of the
common people. I would point out that in protecting private Members' rights we are protecting the thousands of people whom the private Members represent. We cannot tell our constituents that we cannot find time for the discussion of their grievances, that we have got to accept the time table laid down by the Government for the time being. Every other interest can be protected and recognised, but the interests of the great mass of the people can be to a large extent neglected, and we enter our emphatic protest and ask that the Government shall give a guarantee that a certain proportion of the time of the House shall be allocated to the discussion of questions which the workers of the country are mainly interested in.

Major HILLS: I do not propose to follow the last speaker in the large number of subjects with which he has dealt, but I most strongly agree with him in one point. I do stand for the rights of private Members. I agree with all that he said, and I agree with every speaker except one, and that is my hon. Friend, the Member for Canterbury (Mr. R. McNeill), who has a contempt of private Members' activities which experience has not borne out and which the House does not share. How do we really get most time for discussing matters? I am in the same boat with the last speaker over that. I do not want the Government to shut either him or me out of the chance of discussing whatever we want to discuss, but I do put it to him that he is wrong in this matter and that under the plan of the Government the private Members will in this particular case get more opportunities of discussing questions we all want to discuss than if the private Members are given their usual time. After all, what are the main subjects? They are unemployment, Ireland, high prices, extravagance, railways, and telephones, and every one of these can be raised on one of the Estimates. That surely is a much better chance for us than the chance of getting a place in the ballot, which may not bring on a discussion of the subject we want. This applies also to the right hon. Member for Miles Platting (Mr. Clynes), who lays great stress on the questions of Ireland and unemployment. I think all these points are better dealt with on the Estimates.
Just look at the position in which we stand. Either we have to support the Government, or the House ought to have met earlier, or we have to have a Closure Resolution in order to get the finance through in a short time. I do not think the House could have met earlier. They had a very long Session last year, and unless we have some Resolution of this sort we shall compel the Government to bring in a guillotine Motion. The House will recollect that last year, on the 8th March, the Government tabled a Motion for a strict guillotine closure of all Supplementary Estimates. My hon. Friends and I objected to that, the House supported us, and the Government gave way; and we won, I think, a great victory for the private Member, because we compelled the Government to accept the decision of an unofficial Committee of this House which was set up and which allotted the time for the Estimates; the whole thing worked admirably, and the discussion went through without the Closure. For the time being we have killed the guillotine and closure. The ruin of this House is the guillotine, and I appeal very strongly to the House not so to curtail the Government that they have to resort to the guillotine, for after all they have to get their finance through by the end of the financial year. That brings me to the real point of the question that I want to put to the Government. If we give them this Motion to-day, we must be given a promise that there is no guillotine closure for finance. I quite agree that an improper use of the right of Debate has got to be dealt with when it arises, but I do not think we can pass this Motion until we have an absolute promise that if the Government are given all the time they ask they will not subsequently introduce a guillotine resolution on finance.
I agree with all that my hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green (Mr. G. Locker-Lampson) said as to the rights of private Members. He and I have worked previously together for the same objects, and I agree that we ought also to have an assurance from the Government that they do not mean this to be permanent. It ought not to be a permanent thing that private Members should be deprived of their time before Easter. Now, with the heavy amount of Supplementary Estimates and the repercussion of the War still upon us, I think it is necessary, but we ought to be assured
that this is the last time, for if once you allow the Government to invade private Members' rights, those rights are gone for ever. Therefore, I venture to ask, first of all, for a promise that there will be no guillotine, and secondly, that this is only a temporary measure and will not be moved next year. I must say that although my right hon. Friend is always ready to give days for the discussion of anything in which a large body of opinion is interested, our case is twofold. First of all, he is very courteous and very liberal in the interpretation of his promises, but he might be succeeded by somebody who took a stricter view of the Government's interests, and secondly, if we have private Members' time, we are then, to a certain extent, the masters of the Government, and we can compel them to listen to things to which they do not want to listen. If, on the other hand, we have to go to them for time, they can find a hundred reasons for refusing time on a subject which they regard as inconvenient. Still, in spite of all these objections, on the whole I think the Government have chosen the wisest course, and I shall certainly support them.

Lord ROBERT CECIL: With much that has fallen from my hon. and gallant Friend who has just sat down I agree. I agree that the guillotine and closure are almost the worst way of carrying on the business of this House. I say almost, because I think the one thing that is worse is an all-night sitting. I think an all-night sitting is a scandal and a disgrace, and a relic of barbarism which this House ought not to submit to under any circumstances or on any provocation. I agree also with my hon. and gallant Friend in hoping that the Government will not make this a permanent proposal to take away private Members' time. I am going to say a word about the Tuesday evenings, but I cannot quite agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) in his view that private Members' Bills—what are called Friday Bills—are always bad. I often disagree with them; indeed, I think I probably more often disagree with them than agree with them, but I think they are a valuable institution, nevertheless, and I should be very sorry to see them abolished. I think it is of great importance that people who desire some vague reform should have an opportunity
of putting it into black and white and having it properly discussed in this House in real legislative form. It is very easy to frame a nebulous resolution, which means nothing or everything, and to get a rather casual assent from a majority on a Tuesday or Wednesday evening, but it is quite different to reduce that to a Bill which can be dealt with in detail. For that reason, and other reasons, I think Fridays are a valuable institution.
But I must say I do not agree with the hon. Member for Silvertown (Mr J. Jones) in his view of the procedure of this House. When a Government Bill is on, and the Government have taken time for that Bill, it is quite true all the functions of this House as a great inquest of the nation are suspended, with one exception. Evidently you can only discuss the Bill. But that is not equally true of finance. There are far more opportunities for raising questions that are of interest to the House on those occasions. My right hon. Friend, with his great knowledge of these matters, pointed out the number of occasions on which the unemployment question, for instance, could be raised. He was quite right. I do not think he really exhausted the opportunities, because, in addition to the actual Vote on Account, the Consolidated Fund Bill and the Vote for Unemployment, there is also the Unemployment Insurance Bill, on the Second Reading of which, so far as I can see, a very large amount of the unemployment question can be raised. The hon. Member behind me said, "Ah, but we shall not be allowed to increase the amount under that Bill." That is quite true. But you will be able to raise the desirability of increasing it, and unless you are a member of the majority, that is all you can ever do

Mr. J. JONES: You can move an Amendment.

Lord R. CECIL: You cannot move an Amendment in Committee increasing the amount, but you can, on Second Reading, move an Amendment saying that the House is not prepared to assent to the Second Reading unless the amount is increased. Therefore, the question can be raised, and even on that point I think the hon. Member is not quite right. There are all those occasions on which this particular matter of unemployment can be raised, and the same, of course, is true of Ireland. In addition to that, there is
an exceedingly valuable privilege, which at one time showed signs of being destroyed, namely, the right of moving the Adjournment under Standing Order 10. If there is really any serious crisis either with regard to unemployment or Ireland, it is open to any forty Members of this House to secure the Adjournment of the House, and get what is equivalent to a Tuesday evening on any day of the week for the discussion of that crisis. That is an immensely valuable privilege, and I never see it interfered with by the Government without profound regret, and it is the best way of raising really urgent questions which the public desires to see discussed in this House. Therefore, all those opportunities remain open for the whole subject of unemployment, and the same is equally true of Ireland.
The hon. Member made some observation about the reality of the desire for economy, which, I must say, I rather regretted to hear. I believe there is a very genuine desire for economy in this House, and I am quite sure, even if hon. Members, from original sin, are a little slack about economy, their constituents will soon correct that slackness. It is a subject, undoubtedly, exciting a great deal of interest in the country, and, therefore, I am sure, will excite a great deal of interest in this House. It is certainly not true of myself, and I do not believe for a moment that it is true of the great mass of this House, that they are prepared to pick and choose. They desire a real economy, and they desire it just as much in the fighting services as in any other part of the expenditure of the country. It is just as important, and it may be more important, because larger sums are paid in those services than in other matters, and the House will scrutinise with the utmost care any demand of the Government for expenditure in that respect. For my part, I believe very strongly that the House will have to go very far in the direction of economic reform if they are going to do anything real. I welcome the promise of the appointment of the Committee on National Expenditure, and I join very earnestly in the appeal that the appointment of that Committee should be made immediately. There is really no reason why it should not be done, and I can assure my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench that if there is any
appearance on their part of stifling, hindering, or hampering the work of that Committee, it will produce the worst possible effect in the country, not only for their own unpopularity, which I regard with a certain amount of indifference, but also produce a very bad effect in the country on the general reputation of this House.
Therefore, I hope that will be done immediately. But I am satisfied we shall have to go much further than that if we are really going to make effective reform in economy. I doubt whether it would be in Order, even on the present rather lax occasion, to discuss the proposals for economy, and I am not going to do so. I only wish to say that I am satisfied the present system of controlling expenditure has broken down. I do not believe, personally, that any Committee on Estimates can really be effective to secure broad economy. I am sure you will have to go a great deal further than that and go to the general principle that you have got to limit the amount you have got to spend, in the first instance, and then compel the spending Departments to cut down their Estimates to that figure, at whatever cost to their own Department. Subject to that, I do not propose myself to oppose the Motion.

Mr. SPENCER: I am quite convinced that every lover of political institutions will pause before supporting the Government in this Motion. Political institutions are being challenged to-day by vast majorities of the working classes of this and every country, because they allege that they have failed to function so far as the working classes are concerned. I cannot conceive of anything which it is more undesirable to convey to the mind of the working classes of this country than that impression. When one considers that in relation to the tendencies of the times for a fundamental change in our political institutions, it behoves every lover of political institutions to pause before he takes any step whatever which is likely to endanger the continuity of institutions of this character. I cannot conceive of anything worse than to disturb the confidence of the people with regard to such institutions, and if we are expecting that confidence to continue to repose in the people of this country, then we have got to let them realise that this, at least, is a place where adequate opportunity will be
afforded to every Member who desires to bring forward every grievance, and to be assured himself, and also the constituents, that that grievance will have due consideration, and that, in so far as it is susceptible either of modification or of improvement, it will have the sympathetic attention of the whole of this House.
The, hon. and gallant Member for Durham (Major Hills) gave us a catalogue of what he considered to be grievances that might find ready opportunity in this House for discussion. I want to bring to his mind what is a very great grievance indeed, on which, it seems to me, if this Motion is accepted, there will be but a limited opportunity of discussion. I refer to the question of workmen's compensation. That subject was not even mentioned by the hon. and gallant Member, which is an evidence at least that, so far as the vast majority of the Members of that side of the House are concerned, they are not brought into immediate touch with the effective questions of this character and magnitude. Let me draw attention to this very important question. When the War broke out the maximum compensation a man could receive was £1 a week. Since then the compensation to a man who is totally incapacitated has been increased by 75 per cent. The cost of living has risen by at least 160 or 170 per cent. Before the War, the man who met with a serious accident, and who was totally incapacitated, was in a very deplorable condition. But that is not the worst of it. While some attempt has been made to relieve the awful distress of men who have been unfortunate enough to meet with accidents of this kind, no attempt whatever has been made to meet the changed condition in relation to the widow who has lost her husband through an accident, and been left with little children. The maximum compensation before was £300, and the maximum compensation now is £300.
Problems such as these are being urgently pressed by vast majorities of the working classes of this country, and I cannot conceive anything more detrimental to an institution of this character than to limit the time of the private Member to bring these cases forward. We have had a Departmental Committee sitting, and a Report has been issued, and I am very sorry to say that, notwithstanding the fact that repeated deputations
have visited the Home Secretary, we have been told by him, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, that they can find no time to bring in legislation of this character, as it is too highly controversial. I noticed in His Majesty's Gracious Speech that certain reforms were adumbrated. I venture to suggest that, in regard to most of them, with one exception, the question of workmen's compensation is more important. I know of nothing that is more important to the well-being of this country than provision for unemployment, and, secondly, I put this question of workmen's compensation. We might have raised this question and made the House acquainted with the general conditions of the case. I give credit to the other side for being animated with the desire, so long as they know the facts, to bring about a general improvement in the condition of those whose conditions we are seeking to improve, but if no opportunity is given to private Members to bring information of this kind to light before the House of Commons—information which is being gained in immediate contact with the people who are suffering—then this House of Commons is in the dark, and it passes over and does not know that things like this are in existence.
I could give stories which would harrow the feelings of this House in relation to men who have been honest, hard-working citizens, who have met with serious accidents, who have built up their home slowly and steadily until it has been a castle to them, and with the accident every stick and stone almost has had to be put into pawn to keep the wife and children existing because the incapacity for employment has been of such a long duration. By motions of this character, however, we will not be allowed to occupy the time of the House to bring up questions of this character, and this notwithstanding the fact that the Government have instituted a Committee, and that that Committee has issued its Report. I only wish that that Report, with which I do not agree altogether, could have been embodied in a Bill, so that there might be brought about an improvement in the condition of the working classes. Had it not been for these points to put forward, I should not have risen to-night. In view, however, of the fact that no provision is to be made for the Amendment of workmen's compensation, and that the
Government are going to deprive us of the privilege of making known to the House what are the awful conditions under which the working classes suffer, I shall vote against the proposal of the Government.

Mr. BONAR LAW: There has been a fairly long discussion on this subject which, I think, shows that there is really no difference of opinion in the House about the necessity for this particular Motion. The state of business requires it. My hon. Friend who spoke last is under some delusion, if I may say so, for, like other of his hon. Friends, he seems to think that what we are doing is to deprive the Labour party of opportunities of endless discussion on various questions. We are doing nothing of the kind. The vote by ballot has already been taken for Bills, and the Labour party has not been successful. Therefore, what we are doing to-day will not affect them in the least so far as private Bills are concerned. If we come to the question of occasions for private Members, there are four, or possibly five, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and they have had the same chance as other Members of the House in the ballot. Therefore I think they are entirely wrong in assuming that we are depriving them of opportunities for raising special subjects which they wish to discuss. If my right hon. Friend opposite—and this is advice which perhaps is not in my own interest to give—would devote himself a little more to hunting—as some hon. Members do—opportunities for raising questions about things in which he is specially interested, he would probably be much more successful than in the method he has proposed. Let me point out that amongst the Supplementary Estimates is one dealing with unemployment. That must come on almost immediately, and I am quite sure that that will give all concerned a proper opportunity of raising questions, and a better one than they would have got in the ordinary way in private Members' time. As regards my right hon. Friend opposite (Sir D. Maclean), I think in his heart he admits the necessity for this Resolution.

Sir D. MACLEAN: Not in my heart; I admit it quite frankly.

Mr. BONAR LAW: I rather gathered that my right hon. Friend did admit
the necessity for it. He made the proposal that we should give certain days after Easter. I think it is quite conclusive that subjects in which hon. Members are interested are more advanced by general discussion, in which large sections of the House are interested, than by discussions which come about by accident of the ballot. I am convinced the House would make a great mistake in adopting the suggestion of my right hon. Friend. I do not think there were any other subjects raised in the discussion, but a great deal has been said about finance. Really, our object in moving this Resolution is that the Supplementary Estimates should be properly considered. I know quite well that had we chosen we could have left the private Members' time, and had a guillotine Resolution on the Business of the House. I think, however, the House would have intensely disliked such a course. The necessity for this is that there should be adequate opportunities for discussing the matters involved in the Supplementary Estimates. As regards these latter, there is only one thing I would say in reference to the speech of my right hon. Friend. He gave the totals of these Supplementary Estimates at £110,000,000. It must not be assumed—I am sure he does not assume it, but Members of the House with less experience might—that this is increased expenditure to that amount. Of course, that is not so. The way in which we keep our accounts makes it impossible to take the savings from one Vote, and set them against the expenditure of another. The last time I had a discussion on this matter with the Chancellor of the Exchequer and his experts, they were of opinion at that time that the savings were fully equal to the Supplementary Estimates. So that the House must not assume that anything like £110,000,000 is actually excess expenditure over the Budget as a whole.
I have been asked some specific questions. One is whether this Motion takes away the right to move the Adjournment. Of course not. I have been asked whether it is the intention of the Government to introduce particular Bills before Easter. We have no such intention, and we do not anticipate it will be possible to introduce any Bills before Easter, except some like the Unemployment Insurance Bill, which is absolutely necessary on account of the state of the country. If the House find time after a discussion of the Esti-
mates we may do something. I do not pledge myself. We do not anticipate there will be any Bills before Easter, except those which are essential, and which we should carry at once, in the category I have mentioned.

Mr. MARRIOTT: Do you include the Railway Bill?

Mr. BONAR LAW: Oh, no. [An HON. MEMBER: "Or the Key Industries Bill?"] No; but it is really hardly necessary for me to answer these questions. Time will not permit before Easter. I have been asked about the Public Expenditure Committee. My right hon. Friend (Mr. Baldwin) said to-day that he intends to set up that Committee at once. I do not think there is more to say. I have already said that the last thing we desire to do is to have the Guillotine in the case of finance, and it is in order to avoid any possibility of that that we are introducing this Motion, for the financial business must be done, as the House knows.; and I have not the least doubt that it can be done without any question of a Guillotine Resolution.

Sir D. MACLEAN: There is a point I omitted in the remarks I made, and that was to ask my right hon. Friend whether the Government have taken into consideration the Report of the Committee of which I have the honour to be Chairman, on the question of the incidence of rates on Bills which are brought before the House. Perhaps my right hon. Friend will say whether between now and Easter the Government will have made up their minds to act upon that Report, and, if so, to what extent?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I am sorry I cannot personally answer that question. I have no doubt it has been considered by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I will consult him about it if my right hon. Friend puts down a question.

Mr. S. WALSH: It is because of the point of view taken by the Leader of the House that we are opposed to this Motion. I do not think that there ever was a time, indeed, I am certain there never was a time, in the history of the nation that it was so necessary for the House to remain master of its own time for at least a reasonable period. Take the matter of the Address, which we have
just finished discussing. There is also the whole question of the restoration of the railways; the question of the decontrol of the mining industry. There is education. Take two of these subjects. The decontrol of the mining industry may come before us in a very few days. No Bill will be necessary. I take it that action can be taken by a Treasury Minute.

Captain S. WILSON: Surely that has nothing to do with private Members' time.

7.0 P.M.

Mr. WALSH: We, the private Members, are asked by this Motion voluntary to place ourselves in a ring fence and to give up whatever rights we possess. As a matter of fact, the condition of the nation is such that matters may occur at the very earliest moment compelling the attention of this House and the country to them. That has been caused because Ministers are coming to this House in the same perfunctory way and spirit in which they did long before the War. They seem to imagine that nothing has changed; that they can come to this House and go away just in the same method as before the War. But that is not the case, and ought not to be. From 1906, so far as I remember, private Members were treated as though they had no Parliamentary rights. Ministers seemed to wonder why they were here. Their duty was to be quiet, to sit still, and—so to speak—to see what God would send them! Surely, however, an occasion of this kind, when unemployment is graver than ever it was known and the condition of the great key industry of the whole nation is such that to-day hundreds of thousands of people are out of employment, is not the time in which to ask us to enclose ourselves within a fence set up by the Government, and practically submit the whole of the time up to 31st March to the disposal of the Government. I do not think it is! I think we ought to have at least a reasonable period allowed to us to deal with these matters which so largely affect the life of the community, and which may involve consequences none of us can determine. That is the reason why we are asking for this. We are not doing so merely for the sake of opposition. Ministers come along and say, do so and so. As a matter of fact, in the past, when time has been
taken, just as they are asking for it now, it has constantly been the case that the House has risen at six or seven or eight o'clock in the evening, and that often the whole day has been wasted. There is really no necessity for coming down so quickly and asking for the whole of private Members' time to be given. So far is I know it has never been suggested that there has ever been any waste of time, or anything like an abuse of the forms of the House; at any rate, it has never been suggested that the Labour party has been guilty of any substantial abuse of procedure. I am sure if hon. Members were permitted to retain some degree of power for the time being we should be better able as a debating centre to deal with those immense matters which we are quite sure are bound to be sprung upon us. We are told that we shall have a really good chance upon the Consolidated Fund Bill. If ever there was a statement which was of practically no value that is one. Everybody knows that when the Consolidated Fund Bill is submitted to the House the whole thing is soon over.
I have mentioned what I and many of my hon. Friends here know to be a matter of the greatest urgency, namely, the position of the coal-mining industry. It is said that we can raise the matter on the Unemployment Vote, but the very appeal made by the Leader of the House was to the effect that the whole thing should pass all its stages in one day. Surely that gives us no real opportunity of discussion. Hon. Members speak as though when a particular matter was being debated you could have a complete discussion in one half-day. That is utterly impossible. We ask that reasonable time should be allowed to Members of the House to take into consideration all those matters which are certain to arise in the immediate future. I do not intend wasting any more time except to say this, that the rights of private Members are often treated in a most disdainful way, as if they were of no importance. What are private Members here for? I suppose they are neither rich nor rare, and that Ministers wonder how they get here.
I am quite sure, however, that to-day outside the House there is a volume of opinion—I am saying this with perfect sincerity—that is sick and tired of the
conventions of the Parliament, and that will not permit them to go on very much longer. I know there is an immense majority outside that will take no notice of what we are saying, and that there is a vast mass of people determined to change the conditions of our procedure. In view of the conditions that exist outside, which have never obtained before in the history of the country, we ask the Government to give some reasonable time to private Members, so that we can devote the whole attention of the House to the grave matters which may arise. If afterwards the Government apply themselves they can get their Votes and Estimates, and can balance at the end of the financial year. It is not as though time were so pressing as all that. It is merely because we have, as the Government ought to have, a desire to accommodate ourselves to the great needs that are certain to arise that we oppose the Motion.

Mr. SWAN: In spite of plausible statements of the Leader of the House in regard to the powers and privileges of Members, we are still very apprehensive that this Motion will take away rights and privileges of Members which we ought to guard in a very jealous manner. We protest against the removal of these privileges because, we are apprehensive that the House is paying too much regard to the financial interests of large corporations, or that large corporations are influencing the action of the House too much, and to the detriment of the rank and file of the country outside whom we represent. Listening to the Leader of the House appealing to us to put aside those rights and privileges reminded me of the fable of the fox which got its tail cut off, and which went about advising all the rest to have their tails taken off likewise. We are not convinced that the right hon. Gentleman's policy is going to be of any assistance to us in the light of existing conditions throughout the country. There are certain problems which we believe can only be dealt with effectively if the chosen representatives of the nation are given opportunities of presenting and outlining their case on the floor of the House of Commons. This ought to be the real sounding-board of public opinion in the country. If the Motion is carried, instead of the House of Commons being recognised as a sounding-board, whereby
we can ventilate all our grievances and seek to remove the great existing social sores, we shall be told by large volumes of men and women that their wrongs can no longer be redressed there, and that the only people who have the ear of the House are the financial magnates who influence and direct its policy. We shall be urged and impelled to resort to direct action, instead of legislation, and methods of persuasion by debate and reasoning.
Certain hon. Members have suggested that we have been laying too much stress, both in this discussion and in that which has taken place during the last few days, on unemployment. We are of the opinion that too much consideration cannot be given to that question until it is solved, in view of the millions of people who are affected by it. What does it mean? I think Carlyle said, that of all the things under the sun the most pitiable sight was that of a man willing to work but unable to obtain it. It is said, "You have your doles." Doles are hopelessly inadequate, and we want to avail ourselves here of every opportunity of protesting against the inequalities from which those who are out of work and their families are suffering. The injustices imposed upon them make a burning impression on the children as they grow up, and they come to feel that they have a grievance against society. The injustice is, that though we recognise that the children of the men and women who are out of employment—miners, artisans, and labourers—are in many cases richly endowed by nature with rare artistic and scientific powers, yet they are not going to have the leisure to train and develop their minds for the battle of life because of that state of unemployment. Because of unemployment, or of the Government's inability to grapple with and solve the problem, the children of the workers are very soon forced to undertake work for which they have no aptitude, with no corresponding benefit to the community. Although they commence life as the very elect of nature, they are soon reduced below the line of mediocrity, and then they are spoken of by statesmen and other people as being simply by-products, with no utility. If they had been given a chance, these children would have developed into the very elect of the country, leading the nation in art and science, and instead of going into business they might have taken a very prominent share in our National
Assembly and have guided the destinies of the nation.
It is for these reasons that we protest against these privileges being taken away, and that we wish to avail ourselves of every opportunity of impressing on the Government the importance to the whole of the young generation of the unemployment problem. I remember, in the closing days of last Session, the Prime Minister made a very eloquent speech, in which he stated that we were importing over £500,000,000 worth of food, which could easily be produced within our own shores. A strange commentary upon that statement was that only two or three months ago, instead of utilising the best man power of our country upon our fertile land, the Government was so bankrupt in ideas that the only way it could deal with the urgent and important question of unemployment was by suggesting emigration, which would send the very best of our manhood and womanhood into other lands to swell the ranks of the unemployed there. I represent a Division containing thousands of acres of fertile land, with hills filled with all kinds of mineral wealth, which urgently require exploitation for industrial purposes. We need electric lights established, dynamos and transmission lines so as to give heat, light and comfort to the people, but instead of the unemployed, who are appealing for work, being put on this useful work, we pass a Bill to give them doles.
We want to take every opportunity to press upon the Government the importance of utilizing the man power at our disposal. We ought to utilize to the full our skilled men, such as engineers and electricians, in order to save our reserves instead of wasting them as we are now doing. I sat on the Transport Committee for nearly two months dealing with the Ways and Communications Bill, and we were intensely in earnest. We were told by the Prime Minister that instead of having large armies of unemployed men the Ways and Communications Bill would open up transport in the various parts of our country, and this would enable us to do the very thing the Prime Minister suggested ought to have been done in the closing days of last Session, that is to produce more of our food supply from the fertile land in this country which is now lying dormant. We could also produce from the hills all kinds of mineral wealth,
things which are so much needed at the present time. We could raise the plane of human life in this way better than by giving doles and passing unemployment Bills. We want to grapple with these problems and we believe that by legislation they can be solved. We wish to fully develop the minds of the people. So long as we have great armies of unemployed men and women the minds of our children will never be developed on unemployment doles. These people are the reserves of industry, and as your system has failed to absorb them, the Government is responsible, and they should provide them not only with a dole of 18s. a week but with wages which will enable them to obtain all the necessaries of life.
We ought jealously to guard the privileges of private Members when Governments fail to respond to the great needs of the country and neglect the obligations which are imposed upon them. The Government ought to see that those who were injured in the War are adequately cared for instead of having their vitalities sucked up by poverty and negligence. In the light of the great discontent both in England and in Ireland at the present time this is not a question of levity with us. We want to see these problems grappled with earnestly, and we are not pressing this matter simply for the sake of talking. We want the financial influences outside to realise that the whole of our kith and kin are likely in the near future to be amongst the unemployed, and that is why we are protesting against this Motion. We want these questions grappled with on constitutional lines instead of having to resort to direct action which will not solve the question.
There are many questions which we want opportunities to discuss. There is the policy of the British Government in Ireland which has brought our name into reproach throughout the civilised world. On this matter we want to be able to present our case and to present a counter policy not limited by a Debate on the Motion for the adjournment, because that opportunity does not enable us to put an alternative policy forward. We who believe in the freedom of Ireland contemplate a people who will use their political machinery to bring about their social redemption and economic emancipation. We contemplate in Ireland a people who, given these powers and opportunities,
will develop the resources of Ireland, develop her fertile land, and develop all that is essential to produce a flourishing and a prosperous people.

Mr. HOHLER: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask if the hon. Member is in order in discussing all these subjects on this Amendment?

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member seems to be indulging in a discussion of all the different topics which he might raise if he were successful in the ballot. I think he is entitled to point out some of them, but he is not entitled to take this opportunity to discuss each of them.

Mr. SWAN: My reason for mentioning these subjects is the very plausible statement made by the Leader of the House in asking us to waive our claims. We recognise that we shall be deprived of our privileges to ventilate these questions by the action of the Government, and it will prevent the bulk of hon. Members from putting forward an alternative policy. On the occasions to which the Leader of the House has referred, if we attempt to discuss an alternative policy we shall be immediately ruled out of order, and we shall be told that we are going outside the ambit and scope of the question before the House. We believe that the policy adopted by the Government in Ireland is affecting the unemployed in this country, and that is why we want to have a full and free discussion in the event of any hon. Member obtaining a chance in the ballot, so that we may in that way open out every avenue whereby it might be possible to find a solution to this problem. I shall oppose the proposition which has been put forward by the Leader of the House.

Mr. DEVLIN: I rise to join in the protest, which has been made against this Motion and I do so because, in my judgment, after a long experience in this House, there has never been so large a demand made upon a very quiescent Parliamentary representation than that made by the Leader of the House when he asks us to accept this Motion. Parliament was only opened last Tuesday. Four or five days have elapsed, and at the end of less than a week the Leader of the House comes here and invites us to hand over every right and privilege we possess to his keeping, and into the keeping of the Government. I think that is a most
outrageous demand to come either from the Government or from the Leader of the House. This is the first time in my memory when a demand of this character has been made at so early a stage in the Session.
In the King's Speech one of the great declarations was that no Session of Parliament ever called together would be engaged less in the passage of legislation. There was practically no legislation adumbrated in the King's Speech. One great reform was mentioned, and that was the reform of the House of Lords. I do not think there is any intention of carrying that matter here or of sending it to the other place. It was merely a piece of window dressing, because nobody cares what happens to the House of Lords. The Lords themselves do not want this Bill, the House of Commons does not want it, the people in the country do not want it. Why is it being introduced? Why try to reform that which cannot be reformed at a time when grave and perilous issues are before this country? In a period when there are such questions as the questions of unemployment and of Ireland and numerous other matters of vital importance to the nation, are they all to be set aside for the purpose of talking about a proposal to reform an institution which cannot be reformed? What makes this proposal so indefensible is that the Government are actually asking private Members to give up privileges they now enjoy in the one Session in which, in my memory, there is the least prospect of legislation. You may suggest as an excuse the financial urgency of the situation. If so, why did not Parliament meet a week or two earlier?
I come to the second ground of my opposition to this Resolution. I do not think in the history of this House there was ever anything so insulting as the action of the Government in only giving one day to the discussion of Irish questions on the King's Speech. I do not complain about it from a purely Irish point of view; neither do I do so from a personal point of view. I, at any rate, had my say; indeed, Mr. Speaker to-day from the Chair, in his arithmetical analysis of the time occupied by Members, in rather a subtle fashion suggested that I was the chief offender in the occupation of time. It is not because of anything I had to say that
I wish to insist on the need for more discussion here of Irish questions. My complaint rather rests on the fact that English Members ought to intervene. This is not an Irish question. It does affect Ireland, of course, but mainly it is a question which affects England—its honour and good name. It affects the character of your Imperial prestige and pride, and these are matters far more for the consideration of Englishmen than of Irishmen. I was therefore anxious to have the opinion of unofficial Members of this House as to whether they sanctioned the proceedings which are being carried on in Ireland to-day, and whether they are satisfied with their good name being besmirched by the disgraceful acts and scandals committed by the Government of this country day by day. The papers are full of stories of crimes and counter-crimes; there never was such a saturnalia of crime calculated to foster hate in years to come. These were considerations which I thought might have commended themselves to the English Members, and I anticipated there might be among thorn many anxious to take part in the discussion of a question so vital to the Empire at large. But they were only permitted to have a few hours for the discussion of this subject in the Imperial Parliament, and from now until Easter the whole time of the House is to be taken up by the Government and we are to be denied the right of raising these daily events in Ireland that are creating such horror in the minds of humane men; we are to be denied the privilege of raising them except by means of question.
I never hear of proposals from the Government to steal from Members the privileges which they enjoy without regarding those proposals as a preliminary to the confiscation of further rights. What did Ministers do here during the short discussion yesterday? I never witnessed a more brazen attempt to chloroform the true facts of the situation in regard to Ireland than that which was made at that Table. The hon. and gallant Member (Captain W. Benn) who opened the Debate, with a most unimpassioned and, to my mind, far too temperate a statement of the Irish case, recited a series of crimes committd by uniformed officers of the Crown in Ireland, including the indictment uttered by a leading Judge and statements made by
other Judges as to the conduct of uniformed officers of the Crown in that country. The hon. and gallant Member's statement was unquestioned and unimpeachable, it could not be denied, and one would have imagined that at the end the Chief Secretary for Ireland would have dealt with it. But from the beginning of the right hon. Gentleman's speech to the finish he never once referred to a solitary count in that indictment against either the officers of the Crown or against the Government. In my judgment, the Government are the greater malefactors, and I know of one case in which British officers wished to do a decent thing, but were prevented doing it by the indecent Government which sits on those Benches.
Only a few weeks before Parliament rose last Session the Black and Tans burned down a large portion of Cork. We demanded an inquiry into that destruction of one of the most beautiful parts of one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. May I point out to Unionist Members opposite it was not merely Nationalist property that was destroyed in Cork. Out of £3,000,000 worth destroyed by Government agents, £2,500,000 belonged to Protestant and Unionist business men who had flourished and grown rich and prosperous out of the support they received from Catholics. We invited the Government to appoint a Committee to inquire into this whole matter. They would not do it. They offered to appoint a military tribunal. They did that, with General Strickland as the chairman. They told us before Parliament rose that they would give us the Report of the tribunal. The Chief Secretary, in fact, said:
I hope it will be possible to give the House the result of this Report before it rises next week.
Subsequently the Attorney-General declared that obviously that was the right thing to do—I mean to give the Report to the House of Commons. The invitation to let us have this Report was given on the 6th December, two months and two weeks after that the Government never even refer to it. It is common knowledge that the, Strickland Report declared that uniformed officers of the Crown—representatives of your Imperial greatness and Imperial order, went out one peaceful night after midnight, when
the citizens had been hunted into their homes under Curfew, and carrying torches and petrol set fire to the property of Unionist gentlemen in the city. Yet when we ask for the Report of the Committee that inquired into those deeds there is absolute silence on that Bench, and not a single word in response to the appeal we have made. Is it any wonder that one half of Ireland is fighting the British Empire and the other half is cursing it—for that is what the Unionist shopkeepers and owners of property in Ireland are doing as the result of these things which are going on?
This Government is treating Parliament and the privileges of private Members with the most absolute contempt. Just look at the Treasury Bench. My hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green (Mr. G. Locker-Lampson) does not usually engage in picturesque photographic scenes of the House, but he said just now, "Look at their countenances." There was not a countenance on the Bench when he said it. The magnificent figure, and the cheerful features of the Minister for Transport appeared once or twice here and there flitting about—a genuine Minister of Transport. My hon. Friend said, "Look at their countenances," when there was not a single person on the Bench, with the exception of an Under-Secretary for the Treasury. Why were they not there? Why had they all fled? Why had the army of paid Members of Parliament, doubly paid Members—for I believe there are about a hundred of them who are directly or indirectly under a financial obligation to the Government—why had they all fled and why are we the victims of this conspiracy, we private Members who sit here compelled to watch our privileges being executed while the executioners leave the guillotine in the genial hands of the right hon. Gentleman who represents the Treasury. One privilege after another goes. They are all disappearing, and it is no high-flavoured statement Labour Members are making when they declare that Parliament is losing caste in the country. It is losing caste in this country. Sinn Fein in Ireland sprang from a disbelief in the capacity of this Parliament either to attend to Irish interests or to give a sympathetic ear to the claims which Ireland has made. That was their irresistible impeachment of the constitutional party—that Parliament would not
hearken to the voice of Ireland, and that you refused to listen to her demands. The same thing will occur here in England. There is a good deal of that mentality in this country. There are countless men in England who believe that this Parliament is merely a symposium for profiteers, and that the Government Bench is merely a comfortable seat for Cabinet Ministers. The Labour party, when they say that the faith of the nation is being lost in Parliament, are not exaggerating in the least. The direct actionists, the men who are casting contempt upon Parliamentary institutions, who declare it to be a humbug, a fraud and a sham, are getting their justification, and getting it in this very House. I regret profoundly that, either in Ireland or in England, that mentality should have, sprung up. I believe that the whole safety of the State and the welfare of the people rests upon Parliamentary institutions. I believe that Parliamentary institutions will never disappear unless they are destroyed by the men who should be their finest and best defenders. This confiscation of Members' privileges, this refusal to do justice to the claims put forward by private Members of this House—these are the weapons that will be used against the House of Commons and similar institutions. Therefore I enter my protest against this further attempt to take away from private Members the privileges that they enjoy, and I say to the House that it is only another of the many contributions which this Government has made to the destruction of the peoples' faith in Parliament.

Mr. LYLE-SAMUEL: Although I am opposed to the decision of the Government to deprive private Members of these five days, yet, from the point of view which I hold in regard to fiscal matters, I can foresee at least one advantage from it. It was disclosed, in the statement of the Lord Privy Seal this afternoon, that the much adumbrated and, from the point of view of those who believe in it, long overdue Key Industries and Anti-Dumping Bill will not be brought in until after Easter. What is the spectacle which the business men of this country see before them? It is that of a Government which cannot rid itself of the idea, which came into Governmental minds during the War, that it is the business of the Government to interfere with trade. It is that of a
Government which proposes to continue this policy of directing here and obstructing there, deflecting there and, as they may think, advancing here, the trade life of this country. For over two years it has promised a Bill which, from what we know of the Bill which has already been introduced and which was afterwards withdrawn, must vitally interfere with the commercial life of this country. On the other hand, there has been an announcement of the terms of the Reparations Treaty, and by that announcement we can see that the Government is proposing to take from Germany quantities of goods—raw materials and finished articles—so vast that the effect must be most serious and injurious to the trade life of this country. The business men of this country are looking to the Government and asking, "What is your policy? Are you going to get off our backs? Are you going to free trade, or have you a policy by which you propose to continue to control trade?" The Government now say that the Bill cannot be introduced until after Easter. From the point of view of those of us who are Free Traders, that Bill cannot be too long postponed; but, if the Government continue to postpone it, as they have done, it becomes every month an increasingly ridiculous proposition. If key industries should be protected, why has there been a delay of over two years before the Government has taken action? If the Government have not satisfied themselves as to what are key industries, how can they have satisfied themselves that key industries need to be protected? If the Government are really satisfied that too many foreign goods are being dumped into this country, and if the Government can keep their pledge of December, 1918, that their anti-dumping legislation should be limited to goods imported into this country at a price below the cost of manufacture in the country of origin, and by that means do anything to support our trade, it will be very interesting legislation when it is produced.
The greatest question at this moment for us at home, namely, the problem of unemployment, overshadows the whole of our national life. It is harassing hundreds of thousands of homes. It is a problem so great that the Government appear to be absolutely baffled. They have no policy; and yet they will not free our business men to conduct the business of the country as they used to conduct it
until the Government was perpetually interfering, by licences, restrictions and tariffs, with the business that our English traders were able to conduct with all the world. If unemployment is to be relieved and the industries of this country are to be revived, the Government must stand on one side and leave it to our business men to conduct their own industries in their own way. Our English manufacturers, merchants, steamship owners, bankers, are the most competent and best trained internationally of any set of men engaged in such business in any part of the world. In this little island we built up an international trade which not only made us the envy of the world, but proved, when the War came, that we had more resources in every part of the world than any other country. There is no danger of international competition from America. American bankers do not understand international banking as we do; they will not give international credits. But our businesses cannot be restored until our business men, taking their courage in both hands, and knowing that the policy of the Government leaves them free, revert to their pre-War methods in the conduct of business and provide that employment of which our people are in such need. As long as the Government delay the announcement of their policy, they are encouraging men like the hon. Member for Chippenham (Mr. G. Terrell), who is almost a pathetic figure when he rises day by day, and removes his hat almost obsequiously, to ask the Leader of the House, "When is the Bill coming?" As long as protectionists of that kind are encouraged by the Government to believe that the promise of December, 1918, will be betrayed, and our free trade policy finally departed from and protection established, our manufacturers are not free to engage with the strength, virility, foresight and courage that they would display if the Government in no way interfered with the industry of this country.
Apart from the fact that anxiety and uncertainty as to the policy of the Government is causing unemployment and hampering trade, I venture to think that the terms so far disclosed of the Reparations Treaty are a greater cause of anxiety still. We needed at least a day in this House to discuss that great question, and it is clear that that day should have been given
last week, in view of the conference this week. It was left, however, to be sandwiched in last Friday, limited to two hours, and moved by that able financier and business authority, the hon. Member for South Hackney. The whole thing was turned into buffoonery. The hon. Member said that if he went he would get a little good wine, and, I think he said, a little gold, and one or two odds and ends of that sort. This great question, however, involves the settlement of the peace of the world, and, until there is peace internationally and Central Europe, settles down, our business must be at a standstill and unemployment must be rife, because the whole economic and industrial life of this country rests upon the basis of our overseas trade throughout Central Europe and all the world. The Prime Minister had, indeed, an easy task to reply to such arguments as were advanced by the hon. Member for South Hackney, in favour of the notion that we will have the full amount—£10,000,000,000 or £11,000,000,000, or whatever it may be—if we wait about 1,000,000,000 years to get it, instead of seeking peace as a definite end in itself Peace is something to which we should seek to draw near, because, until we have settled the problem of Central Europe, and restored the markets for our manufactures, we must have unemployment, and that means a perpetual drain on our taxpayers. If the War is going to end merely in a grasping struggle for spoils, there will be no spoils and no plunder. If that Reparations Treaty, as we have seen it so far, should be carried out, it will not be Germany that will pay; it will be the British working man who will pay in unemployment.
8.0 P.M.
I have read that Treaty, and it horrified me. I know that the Prime Minister knows that it is ridiculous. The serious thing is that the Prime Minister is taking the line that he takes because of French pressure. Every time the French cock crows the Prime Minister denies the liberal faith for which he stands and such a settlement as will bring peace to the world. Afterwards, when the Prime Minister will have to take the course that he will take, and say, "Well, of course, we cannot go on with it; of course we only did this to carry through; it was a hand-to-mouth policy to get a settlement," the French people will be entitled to say, "We know you solid-headed Englishmen; we know your knowledge of
international finance. You said that we could get this amount in reparations, and we believed you. You backed up our statesmen in demanding it, and we have been sold." Surely it was not too much to ask that we should have been given time for a full discussion of the terms of this Treaty? Turn where you will, the markets of the world are either dried up or closed against us. There is a factory in my own constituency, 75 per cent. of the output of which went to Russia before the War. I was talking to the chairman this week-end, and he said that they can see their way for another two months, but that after that they do not know what will happen. There is no market at home, there is no market abroad, there is not a market in the world, and they are on short time, using up their resources in trying to keep together the business and provide employment for their workers. Every part of the country is in such a condition of distress that, if this House wanted the authority which at present it does not possess, it would have had a full and free and fair discussion as to what can be done, so that the business men of this country might have looked to this House for the leadership which they are entitled to expect. There is no leadership; there is no policy; there is merely a deferring of this Anti-Dumping, Key Industries Bill until another day. Most particularly would I say that it is grossly unfair, in a House of over 700 Members, that, when an acutely difficult problem like that of Ireland, in the condition of savagery, misery, and murder that exists there today, is before this country, only ten speakers should be allowed to express their views upon it. Why, Sir, when I heard last night the final closing speech of the Lord Privy Seal, a brutal speech, a heartless speech, murder for murder—I do not know the name of the wag who called this Christian England, but I heard last night the old law of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and two eyes for an eye, and three teeth for a tooth if possible—we saw everything that was basest and most hopeless. It is all very well for the hon. Gentleman to laugh. I will say a word directly to the hon. Gentleman, and he will remember that what is at stake in Ireland is the reputation of this country as a country that governs by civilised means. What is the foundation of civilisation? It is justice, it is truth, it
is mercy, it is love. We used these words simply and naturally when we went into the War. We went into the War to secure civilisation. We asked great sacrifices that civilisation might be preserved. Here to-day we see the very antithesis, the very negation of civilisation in Ireland.
I believed all last year the word of the Chief Secretary. When the Chief Secretary stood at that box, the loud trombone of the Ministerial orchestra, and with great noise assured us that our gallant officers were not guilty of those crimes, I believed him, and I supported the Government every time. Now what do we know? We know it is not true. There is such a volume of evidence of the crimes that have been committed in Ireland, crimes that make everyone of us ashamed, crimes of which our children will be ashamed, crimes for which our children will pay in the hate continued through generations of Irish people who will never forget some of the damnable things now done in the name of English justices. There can be no discussion when we ask why two distinguished British officers, a general and an adjutant have resigned, resigned under circumstances of the greatest suspicion, resigned as the evidence seems to show because, having dismissed men for improper conduct, for acts of indiscipline and violence, these men are returned to them because the matter has been hushed up and dealt with, after which they are asked to continue to command creatures of that sort.
The Government, by the manœuvre of 1918, deprived this House of public interest largely because they have deprived it of an Opposition. The people of this country are divided nearly equally into two parties, and you have enfranchised people in one year and disenfranchised them the next. It is to us they look. But this great machine-like system of personal government, this refusal to allow us to debate matters of principle in this House, is bringing this House into contempt. The conscience of England is not dead, and the conscience of England is rebelling against this system of government in Ireland. Whoever dreamt that in 1921 we should have heard such speeches as we heard yesterday from the Lord Privy Seal and the Chief Secretary? I appeal to the Government to remember that this Parliament is the sole instrument by which
the views of the millions of this land can be expressed, that we stand between them and their silence in public affairs. They are not willing to be silent, they are not willing to be counted out. You have given them a great weapon they can use, a proper and legitimate means in this House for the expression of their views. If you deny them that opportunity, they will take a weapon of another sort. They will inevitably resort to violence, a thing which everyone who

loves this House and who cherishes ideals of constitutional government will deplore to the very utmost.

Lord EDMUND TALBOT (Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury): rose in his place and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

Question put, "That the Question be not put."

The House divided: Ayes, 241; Noes. 67.

Division No. 4.]
AYES.
[8.6 p.m.


Adair, Rear-Admiral Thomas B. S.
Dennis, J. W. (Birmingham, Deritend)
Jones, Sir Evan (Pembroke)


Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. C.
Doyle, N. Grattan
Jones, G. W. H. (Stoke Newington)


Adkins, Sir William Ryland De[...]
Du Pre, Colonel William Baring
Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)


Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte
Edgar, Clifford B.
Jones, J. T. (Carmarthen, Llanelly)


Ainsworth, Captain Charles
Edge, Captain William
Joynson-Hicks, Sir William


Archer-Shee, Lieut.-Colonel Martin
Edwards, Allen C. (East Ham, S.)
Kellaway, Rt. Hon. Fredk. George


Armitage, Robert
Edwards, Major J. (Aberavon)
King, Captain Henry Douglas


Bagley, Captain E. Ashton
Elliot, Capt. Walter E. (Lanark)
Knight, Major E. A. (Kidderminster


Baird, Sir John Lawrence
Elveden, Viscount
Larmor, Sir Joseph


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Eyres-Monsell, Commander B. M.
Law, Alfred J. (Rochdale)


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Falle, Major Sir Bertram G.
Law, Rt. Hon. A. B. (Glasgow, C.)


Banner, Sir John S. Harmood-
Farquharson, Major A. C.
Lewis, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Univ., Wales)


Barnett, Major R. W.
Fisher, Rt. Hon. Herbert A. L.
Lewis, T. A. (Glam., Pontypridd)


Barnston, Major Harry
Flannery, Sir James Fortescue
Lister, Sir R. Ashton


Barrand, A. R.
Ford, Patrick Johnston
Lloyd, George Butler


Barton, Sir William (Oldham)
Forestier-Walker, L.
Lonsdale, James Rolston


Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.
Forrest, Walter
Loseby, Captain C. E.


Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)
Foxcroft, Captain Charles Talbot
Lowther, Lt.-Col. Claude (Lancaster)


Betterton, Henry B.
France, Gerald Ashburner
Lynn, R. J.


Birchall, Major J. Dearman
Fraser, Major Sir Keith
Mackinder, Sir H. J. (Camlachie)


Bird, Sir A. (Wolverhampton, West)
Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.
McLaren, Robert (Lanark, Northern)


Blades, Capt. Sir George Rowland
Gardiner, James
M'Lean, Lieut.-Col. Charles W. W.


Blair, Sir Reginald
Gardner, Ernest
McMicking, Major Gilbert


Blake, Sir Francis Douglas
Geddes, Rt. Hon. Sir E. (Camb'dge)
Macpherson, Rt. Hon. James I.


Boles, Lieut.-Colonel D. F.
Gibbs, Colonel George Abraham
Macquisten, F. A.


Bowles, Colonel H. F.
Gilmour, Lieut.-Colonel John
Malone, Major P. B. (Tottenham, S.)


Bowyer, Captain G. E. W.
Goff, Sir R. Park
Manville, Edward


Boyd-Carpenter, Major A.
Gould, James C.
Marks, Sir George Croydon


Brassey, Major H. L. C.
Gray, Major Ernest (Accrington)
Mildmay, Colonel Rt. Hon. F. B.


Breese, Major Charles E.
Green, Joseph F. (Leicester, W.)
Mitchell, William Lane


Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive
Greene, Lt.-Col. Sir W. (Hack'y, N.)
Moles, Thomas


Briggs, Harold
Greenwood, Colonel Sir Hamar
Molson, Major John Elsdale


Broad, Thomas Tucker
Greig, Colonel James William
Morden, Lieut.-Col. W. Grant


Brown, Captain D. C.
Guinness, Lieut.-Col. Hon. W. E.
Morison, Rt. Hon. Thomas Brash


Bruton, Sir James
Hacking, Captain Douglas H.
Morrison, Hugh


Buckley, Lieut.-Colonel A.
Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich)
Morrison-Bell, Major A. C.


Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James
Hamilton, Major C. G. C.
Murchison, C. K.


Burn, Col. C. R. (Devon, Torquay)
Hanna, George Boyle
Murray, John (Leeds, West)


Campion, Lieut.-Colonel W. R.
Hanson, Sir Charles Augustin
Nall, Major Joseph


Carr, W. Theodore
Harmsworth, Hon. E. C. (Kent)
Neal, Arthur


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Evelyn (Birm., Aston)
Harris, Sir Henry Percy
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)


Chadwick, Sir Robert
Hennessy, Major J. R. G.
Nicholson, Reginald (Doncaster)


Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A. (Birm., W.)
Henry, Denis S. (Londonderry, S.)
Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)


Chamberlain, N. (Birm., Ladywood)
Hewart, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon
Norman, Major Rt. Hon. Sir Henry


Chilcot, Lieut-Com. Harry W.
Hills, Major John Waller
Ormsby-Gore, Captain Hon. W.


Churchman, Sir Arthur
Hinds, John
Palmer, Major Godfrey Mark


Clough, Robert
Hohler, Gerald Fitzroy
Palmer, Brigadier-General G L.


Coats, Sir Stuart
Hope, James F. (Sheffield, Central)
Parry, Lieut.-Colonel Thomas Henry


Cockerill, Brigadier-General G. K.
Hopkins, John W. W.
Pearce, Sir William


Collins, Sir G. P. (Greenock)
Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)
Pennefather, De Fonblanque


Conway, Sir W. Martin
Horne, Edgar (Surrey, Guildford)
Perkins, Walter Frank


Coote, Colin Reith (Isle of Ely)
Howard, Major S. G.
Perring, William George


Cope, Major Wm.
Hume-Williams, Sir W. Ellis
Pollock, Sir Ernest M.


Cory, Sir C. J. (Cornwall, St. Ives)
Hunter, General Sir A. (Lancaster)
Polson, Sir Thomas


Courthope, Lieut-Col. George L.
Hurd, Percy A.
Prescott, Major W. H.


Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities)
Hurst, Lieut.-Colonel Gerald B.
Pretyman, Rt. Hon. Ernest G.


Craig, Captain C. C. (Antrim, South)
Illingworth, Rt. Hon. A. H.
Purchase, H. G.


Curzon, Commander Viscount
Inskip, Thomas Walker H.
Rae, H. Norman


Dalziel, Sir D. (Lambeth, Brixton)
Jackson, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. F. S.
Ramsden, G. T.


Davidson, J. C. C. (Hemel Hempstead)
James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert
Rees, Capt. J. Tudor- (Barnstaple)


Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H.
Jephcott, A. R.
Reid, D. D.


Davies, Alfred Thomas (Lincoln)
Jodrell, Neville Paul
Remer, J. R.


Davies, Sir Joseph (Chester, Crewe)
Johnstone, Joseph
Roberts, Sir S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)


Davies, Thomas (Cirencester)
Jones, Sir Edgar R. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Robinson, Sir T. (Lanes., Stretford)


Rodger, A. K.
Stanley, Major Hon. G. (Preston)
Warren, Lieut.-Col. Sir Alfred H.


Roundell, Colonel R. F.
Steel, Major S. Strang
White, Lieut-Col. G. D. (Southport)


Royden, Sir Thomas
Stevens, Marshall
Williams, Lt.-Com. C. (Tavistock)


Rutherford, Sir W. W. (Edge Hill)
Stewart, Gershom
Willoughby, Lieut.-Col. Hon. Claud


Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)
Taylor, J.
Wilson, Daniel M. (Down, West)


Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)
Terrell, Captain R. (Oxford, Henley)
Wilson, Colonel Leslie O. (Reading)


Sanders, Colonel Sir Robert A.
Thomas, Sir Robert J. (Wrexham)
Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir M. (Bethnal, Gn.)


Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D.
Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)
Wilson-Fox, Henry


Scott, Leslie (Liverpool Exchange)
Thomson, Sir W. Mitchell- (Maryhill)
Wise, Frederick


Seddon, J. A.
Townshend, Sir Charles Vere Ferrers
Wood, Sir J. (Stalybridge & Hyde)


Seely, Major-General Rt. Hon. John
Tryon, Major George Clement
Wood, Major Sir S. Hill- (High Peak)


Shaw, Hon. Alex. (Kilmarnock)
Turton, E. R.
Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.


Shaw, William T. (Forfar)
Wallace, J.
Yate, Colonel Sir Charles Edward


Shortt, Rt. Hon. E. (N'castle-on-T.)
Ward, Col. J. (Stoke upon Trent)
Young, Lieut.Com. E. H. (Norwich)


Simm, M. T.
Ward, William Dudley (Southampton)
Younger, Sir George


Smithers, Sir Alfred W.
Waring, Major Walter
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Sprot, Colonel Sir Alexander
Warner, Sir T. Courtenay T.
Captain Guest and Lord E. Talbot.


NOES.


Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)
Hancock, John George
Rose, Frank H.


Barnes, Major H. (Newcastle, E.)
Hartshorn, Vernon
Royce, William Stapleton


Bell, James (Lancaster, Ormskirk)
Hayday, Arthur
Sexton, James


Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.
Hayward, Major Evan
Shaw, Thomas (Preston)


Bramsdon, Sir Thomas
Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Widnes)
Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)


Bromfield, William
Hirst, G. H.
Sitch, Charles H.


Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Hodge, Rt. Hon. John
Spencer, George A.


Cape, Thomas
Hogge, James Myles
Spoor, B. G.


Carter, W. (Nottingham, Mansfield)
Holmes, J. Stanley
Swan, J. E.


Davies, A. (Lancaster, Clitheroe)
Irving, Dan
Thomas, Rt. Hon. James H. (Derby)


Devlin, Joseph
John, William (Rhondda, West)
Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)


Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)
Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown)
Walsh, Stephen (Lancaster, Ince)


Edwards, G. (Norfolk, South)
Kenworthy, Lieut.-Commander J. M.
Waterson, A. E.


Entwistle, Major C. F.
Kenyon, Barnet
White, Charles F. (Derby, Western)


Finney, Samuel
Lawson, John J.
Wignall, James


Galbraith, Samuel
Lunn, William
Williams, John (Glamorgan, Gower)


Glanville, Harold James
Lyle-Samuel, Alexander
Wilson, W. Tyson (Westhoughton)


Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)
Morgan, Major D. Watts
Wintringham, T.


Graham, R. (Nelson and Colne)
Murray, Dr. D. (Inverness and Ross)
Wood, Major M. M. (Aberdeen, C.)


Graham, W. (Edinburgh, Central)
Newbould, Alfred Ernest
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Grundy, T. W.
Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)
Mr. T. Griffiths and Mr. Nell


Guest, J. (York, W. R., Hemsworth)
Redmond, Captain William Archer
Maclean.


Hall, F. (York, W.R., Normanton)
Rendall, Athelstan



Hallas, Eldred
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)

Question put accordingly, "That the words 'but such time as is taken from private Members up to the end of the financial year shall be restored to them

between Easter and Whitsuntide' be there added."

The House divided: Ayes, 68; Noes, 234.

Division No. 5.]
AYES.
[8.15 p.m.


Acland, Rt. Hon. F. D.
Guest, J. (York, W. R., Hemsworth)
Rose, Frank H.


Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)
Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton)
Royce, William Stapleton


Barnes, Major H. (Newcastle, E.)
Hallas, Eldred
Sexton, James


Barton, Sir William (Oldham)
Hancock, John George
Shaw, Thomas (Preston)


Bell, James (Lancaster, Ormskirk)
Hartshorn, Vernon
Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)


Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.
Hayday, Arthur
Sitch, Charles H.


Bramsdon, Sir Thomas
Hayward, Major Evan
Spencer, George A.


Bromfield, William
Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Widnes)
Spoor, B. G.


Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Hirst, G. H.
Swan, J. E.


Cape, Thomas
Hodge, Rt. Hon. John
Terrell, Captain R. (Oxford, Henley)


Carter, W. (Nottingham, Mansfield)
Irving, Dan
Thomas, Rt. Hon. James H. (Derby)


Davies, A. (Lancaster, Clitheroe)
John, William (Rhondda, West)
Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)


Devlin, Joseph
Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown)
Townshend, Sir Charles Vere Ferrers


Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)
Kenyon, Barnet
Walsh, Stephen (Lancaster, Ince)


Edwards, G. (Norfolk, South)
Lawson, John J.
Waterson, A. E.


Entwistle, Major C. F.
Lunn, William
White, Charles F. (Derby, Western)


Finney, Samuel
Lyle-Samuel, Alexander
Wignall, James


Galbraith, Samuel
Morgan, Major D. Watts
Williams, John (Glamorgan Gower)


Glanville, Harold James
Murray, Dr. D. (Inverness & Ross)
Wilson, W. Tyson (Westhoughton)


Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)
Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)
Wood, Major M. M. (Aberdeen, C.)


Graham, R. (Nelson and Colne)
Polson, Sir Thomas
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Graham, W. (Edinburgh, Central)
Rees, Capt. J. Tudor- (Barnstaple)
Mr. Nell Maclean and Mr. Hogge.


Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Rendall, Athelstan



Grundy, T. W.
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)



NOES.


Adair, Rear-Admiral Thomas B. S.
Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte
Armitage, Robert


Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. C.
Ainsworth, Captain Charles
Bagley, Captain E. Ashton


Adkins, Sir William Ryland De[...]t
Archer-Shee, Lieut.-Colonel Martin
Baird, Sir John Lawrence


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Gardner, Ernest
Morrison, Hugh


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Gibbs, Colonel George Abraham
Morrison-Bell, Major A. C.


Banner, Sir John S. Harmood-
Gilmour, Lieut.-Colonel John
Murchison, C. K.


Barnett, Major R. W.
Goff, Sir R. Park
Murray, John (Leeds, West)


Barnston, Major Harry
Gould, James C.
Nall, Major Joseph


Barrand, A. R.
Gray, Major Ernest (Accrington)
Neal, Arthur


Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.
Green, Joseph F. (Leicester, W.)
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)


Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)
Greene, Lt.-Col. Sir W. (Hack'y, N.)
Nicholson, Reginald (Doncaster)


Betterton, Henry B.
Greenwood, Colonel Sir Hamar
Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)


Birchall, Major J. Dearman
Greig, Colonel James William
Norman, Major Rt. Hon. Sir Henry


Bird, Sir A. (Wolverhampton, West)
Gretton, Colonel John
Norton-Griffiths, Lieut.-Col. Sir John


Blades, Capt. Sir George Rowland
Guinness, Lieut.-Col. Hon W. E.
Palmer, Major Godfrey Mark


Blair, Sir Reginald
Hacking, Captain Douglas H.
Palmer, Brigadier-General G. L.


Blake, Sir Francis Douglas
Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich)
Parry, Lieut.-Colonel Thomas Henry


Boles, Lieut.-Colonel D. F.
Hamilton, Major C. G. C.
Pearce, Sir William


Bowles, Colonel H. F.
Hanna, George Boyle
Pennefather, De Fonblanque


Bowyer, Captain G. E. W.
Hanson, Sir Charles Augustin
Perring, William George


Boyd-Carpenter, Major A.
Harmsworth, Hon. E. C. (Kent)
Pollock, Sir Ernest M.


Brassey, Major H. L. C.
Harris, Sir Henry Percy
Prescott, Major W. H.


Breese, Major Charles E.
Hennessy, Major J. R. G.
Pretyman, Rt. Hon. Ernest G.


Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive
Henry, Denis S. (Londonderry, S.)
Purchase, H. G.


Briggs, Harold
Hewart, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon
Rae, H. Norman


Broad, Thomas Tucker
Hills, Major John Waller
Ramsden, G. T.


Brown, Captain D. C.
Hinds, John
Reid, D. D.


Bruton, Sir James
Hohler, Gerald Fitzroy
Remer, J. R.


Buckley, Lieut.-Colonel A.
Holmes, J. Stanley
Roberts, Sir S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)


Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James
Hope, James F. (Sheffield, Central)
Robinson, Sir T. (Lancs, Stretford)


Burn, Col. C. R. (Devon, Torquay)
Hopkins, John W. W.
Rodger, A. K.


Campion, Lieut.-Colonel W. R.
Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)
Roundell, Colonel R. F.


Carr, W. Theodore
Horne, Edgar (Surrey, Guildford)
Royden, Sir Thomas


Cecil, Rt. Hon Evelyn (Birm., Aston)
Howard, Major S. G.
Rutherford, Sir W. W. (Edge Hill)


Chadwick, Sir Robert
Hume-Williams, Sir W. Ellis
Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)


Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A. (Birm. W.)
Hunter, General Sir A. (Lancaster)
Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)


Chamberlain, N. (Birm., Ladywood)
Hurd, Percy A.
Sanders, Colonel Sir Robert A.


Chilcot, Lieut.-Com. Harry W.
Hurst, Lieut. Colonel Gerald B.
Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D.


Churchman, Sir Arthur
Illingworth, Rt. Hon. A. H.
Scott, Leslie (Liverpool, Exchange)


Clough, Robert
Inskip, Thomas Walker H.
Seddon, J. A.


Coats, Sir Stuart
Jackson, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. F. S.
Seely, Major-General Rt. Hon. John


Cockerill, Brigadier-General G. K.
James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert
Shaw, Hon. Alex. (Kilmarnock)


Cohen, Major J. Brunel
Jephcott, A. R.
Shaw, William T. (Forfar)


Collins, Sir G. P. (Greenock)
Jodrell, Neville Paul
Shortt, Rt. Hon. E. (N'castle-on-T.)


Conway, Sir W. Martin
Johnstone, Joseph
Simm, M. T.


Coote, Colin Reith (Isle of Ely)
Jones, Sir Edgar R. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Smithers, Sir Alfred W.


Cope, Major Wm.
Jones, Sir Evan (Pembroke)
Sprot, Colonel Sir Alexander


Cory, Sir C. J. (Cornwall, St. Ives)
Jones, G. W. H. (Stoke Newington)
Stanley, Major Hon. G. (Preston)


Courthope, Lieut.-Col. George L.
Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)
Steel, Major S. Strang


Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities)
Jones, J. T. (Carmarthen, Llanelly)
Stewart, Gershom


Craig, Capt. C. C. (Antrim, South)
Joynson-Hicks, Sir William
Taylor, J.


Curzon, Commander Viscount
Kellaway, Rt. Hon. Fredk. George
Thomas, Sir Robert J. (Wrexham)


Dalziel, Sir D. (Lambeth, Brixton)
King, Captain Henry Douqlas
Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)


Davidson, J. C. C. (Hemel Hempstead)
Knight, Major E. A. (Kidderminster)
Thomson, Sir W. Mitchell- (Maryhill)


Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H.
Larmor, Sir Joseph
Tryon, Major George Clement


Davies, Alfred Thomas (Lincoln)
Law, Alfred J. (Rochdale)
Turton, E. R.


Davies, Sir Joseph (Chester, Crewe)
Law, Rt. Hon. A. B. (Glasgow, C.)
Wallace, J.


Davies, Thomas (Cirencester)
Lewis, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Univ., Wales)
Ward, Col. J. (Stoke upon Trent)


Dennis, J. W. (Birmingham, Deritend)
Lewis, T. A. (Glam., Pontypridd)
Ward, William Dudley (Southampton)


Doyle, N. Grattan
Lister, Sir R. Ashton
Waring, Major Walter


Du Pre, Colonel William Baring
Lloyd, George Butler
Warner, Sir T. Courtenay T.


Edgar, Clifford B.
Lonsdale, James Rolston
Warren, Lieut.-Col. Sir Alfred H.


Edge, Captain William
Lowther, Lt.-Col. Claude (Lancaster)
White, Lieut.-Col. G. D. (Southport)


Edwards, Major J. (Aberavon)
Lynn, R. J.
Williams, Lt.-Com, C. (Tavistock)


Elliot, Capt. Walter E. (Lanark)
Mackinder, Sir H. J. (Camlachie)
Willoughby, Lieut.-Col. Hon. Claud


Elveden, Viscount
McLaren, Robert (Lanark, Northern)
Wilson, Daniel M. (Down, West)


Eyres-Monsell, Commander B. M.
M'Lean, Lieut.-Col. Charles W. W.
Wilson, Colonel Leslie O. (Reading)


Falle, Major Sir Bertram G.
McMicking, Major Gilbert
Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir M. (Bethnal Gn.)


Farquharson, Major A. C.
Macpherson, Rt. Hon. James I.
Wilson-Fox, Henry


Fisher, Rt. Hon. Herbert A. L.
Macquisten, F. A.
Wise, Frederick


Flannery, Sir James Fortescue
Malone, Major p. B. (Tottenham, S.)
Wood, Sir J. (Stalybridge & Hyde)


Ford, Patrick Johnston
Manville, Edward
Wood, Major Sir S. Hill- (High Peak)


Forestier-Walker, L.
Marks, Sir George Croydon
Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.


Forrest, Walter
Mildmay, Colonel Rt. Hon. F. B.
Yate, Colonel Sir Charles Edward


Foxcroft, Captain Charles Talbot
Mitchell, William Lane
Young, Lieut.-Com. E. H. (Norwich)


France, Gerald Ashburner
Moles, Thomas
Younger, Sir George


Fraser, Major Sir Keith
Molson, Major John Elsdale
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.
Morden, Lieut.-Col. W. Grant
Captain Guest and Lord E. Talbot.


Gardiner, James
Morison, Rt. Hon. Thomas Brash

Question put, "That until the end of the financial year, Government business do have precedence at every Sitting."

The House divided: Ayes, 231; Noes, 66.

Division No. 6.]
AYES.
[8.25 p.m.


Adair, Rear-Admiral Thomas B. S.
Ainsworth, Captain Charles
Bagley, Captain E. Ashton


Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. C.
Archer-Shee, Lieut.-Colonel Martin
Baird, Sir John Lawrence


Adkins, Sir William Ryland Dent
Armitage, Robert
Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Gardner, Ernest
Morison, Rt. Hon. Thomas Brash


Banner, Sir John S. Harmood-
Gibbs, Colonel George Abraham
Morrison, Hugh


Barnett, Major R. W.
Gilmour, Lieut.-Colonel John
Morrison-Bell, Major A. C.


Barnston, Major Harry
Goff, Sir R. Park
Murchison, C. K.


Barrand, A. R.
Gould, James C.
Murray, John (Leeds, West)


Barton, Sir William (Oldham)
Gray, Major Ernest (Accrington)
Nall, Major Joseph


Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.
Green, Joseph F. (Leicester, W.)
Neal, Arthur


Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)
Greene, Lt.-Col. Sir W. (Hack'y, N.)
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)


Betterton, Henry B.
Greenwood, Colonel Sir Hamar
Nicholson, Reginald (Doncaster)


Birchall, Major J. Dearman
Greig, Colonel James William
Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)


Bird, Sir A. (Wolverhampton, West)
Gretton, Colonel John
Norman, Major Rt. Hon. Sir Henry


Blades, Capt. Sir George Rowland
Guest, Capt. Rt. Hon. Frederick E.
Norton-Griffiths, Lieut.-Col. Sir John


Blair, Sir Reginald
Guinness, Lieut.-Col. Hon. W. E.
Palmer, Major Godfrey Mark


Blake, Sir Francis Douglas
Hacking, Captain Douglas H.
Palmer, Brigadier-General G. L.


Boles, Lieut.-Colonel D. F.
Hall, Lieut.-Col. sir F. (Dulwich)
Parry, Lieut.-Colonel Thomas Henry


Bowles, Colonel H, F.
Hamilton, Major C. G. C.
Pearce, Sir William


Bowyer, Captain G. E. W.
Hanna, George Boyle
Perkins, Walter Frank


Brassey, Major H. L. C.
Hanson, Sir Charles Augustin
Perring, William George


Breese, Major Charles E.
Harmsworth, Hon. E. C. (Kent)
Pollock, Sir Ernest M.


Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive
Harris, Sir Henry Percy
Prescott, Major W. H.


Briggs, Harold
Hennessy, Major J. R. G.
Pretyman, Rt. Hon. Ernest G.


Broad, Thomas Tucker
Henry, Denis S. (Londonderry, S.)
Purchase, H. G.


Brown, Captain D. C.
Hewart, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon
Rae, H. Norman


Bruton, Sir James
Hills, Major John Waller
Reid, D. D.


Buckley, Lieut.-Colonel A.
Hinds, John
Remer, J. R.


Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James
Hohler, Gerald Fitzroy
Roberts, Sir S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)


Burn, Colonel C. R. (Devon, Torquay)
Holmes, J. Stanley
Robinson, Sir T. (Lancs., Stretford)


Campion, Lieut-Colonel W. R.
Hope, James F. (Sheffield, Central)
Rodger, A. K.


Carr, W. Theodore
Hopkins, John W. W.
Roundell, Colonel R. F.


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Evelyn (Birm., Aston)
Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)
Royden, Sir Thomas


Chadwick, Sir Robert
Howard, Major S. G.
Rutherford, Sir W. W. (Edge Hill)


Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A.(Birm., W.)
Hume-Williams, Sir W. Ellis
Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)


Chamberlain, N. (Birm., Ladywood)
Hunter, General Sir A. (Lancaster)
Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D.


Chilcot, Lieut.-Com. Harry W.
Hurd, Percy A.
Scott, Leslie (Liverpool, Exchange)


Churchman, Sir Arthur
Hurst, Lieut.-Colonel Gerald B.
Seddon, J. A.


Clough, Robert
Illingworth, Rt. Hon. A. H.
Seely, Major-General Rt. Hon. John


Coats, Sir Stuart
Inskip, Thomas Walker H.
Shaw, Hon. Alex. (Kilmarnock)


Cockerill, Brigadier-General G. K.
Jackson, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. F. S.
Shaw, William T. (Forfar)


Cohen, Major J. Brunel
James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert
Shortt, Rt. Hon. E. {N'castle-on-T.)


Conway, Sir W. Martin
Jephcott, A. R.
Simm, M. T.


Coote, Colin Reith (Isle of Ely)
Jodrell, Neville Paul
Smithers, Sir Alfred W.


Cope, Major Wm.
Johnstone, Joseph
Sprot, Colonel Sir Alexander


Cory, Sir C. J. (Cornwall, St. Ives)
Jones, Sir Edgar R. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Stanley, Major Hon. G. (Preston)


Courthope, Lieut.-Col. George L.
Jones, Sir Evan (Pembroke)
Steel, Major S. Strang


Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities)
Jones, G. W. H. (Stoke Newington)
Stewart, Gershom


Craig, Captain C. C. (Antrim, South)
Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)
Talbot, Rt. Hon. Lord E. (Chich'st'r)


Cralk, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry
Jones, J. T. (Carmarthen, Llanelly)
Taylor, J.


Curzon, Commander Viscount
Joynson-Hicks, Sir William
Terrell, Captain R. (Oxford, Henley)


Dalziel, Sir D. (Lambeth, Brixton)
Kellaway, Rt. Hon. Fredk. George
Thomas, Sir Robert J. (Wrexham)


Davidson, J. C. C. (Hemel Hempstead)
King, Captain Henry Douglas
Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)


Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H.
Knight, Major E. A. (Kidderminster)
Thomson, Sir W. Mitchell- (Maryhill)


Davies, Alfred Thomas (Lincoln)
Larmor, Sir Joseph
Tryon, Major George Clement


Davies, Sir Joseph (Chester, Crewe)
Law, Alfred J. (Rochdale)
Turton, E. R.


Davies, Thomas (Cirencester)
Law, Rt. Hon. A. B. (Glasgow, C.)
Wallace, J.


Dennis, J. W. (Birmingham, Deritend)
Lewis, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Univ., Wales)
Ward, Col. J. (Stoke upon Trent)


Doyle, N. Grattan
Lewis, T. A. (Glam., Pontypridd)
Waring, Major Walter


Du Pre, Colonel William Baring
Lister, Sir R. Ashton
Warner, Sir T. Courtenay T.


Edgar, Clifford B.
Lloyd, George Butler
Warren, Lieut.-Col. Sir Alfred H.


Edge, Captain William
Lonsdale, James Rolston
White, Lieut.-Col. G. D. (Southport)


Edwards, Major J. (Aberavon)
Lowther, Lt.-Col. Claude (Lancaster)
Williams, Lt.-Com. C. (Tavistock)


Elliot, Capt. Walter E. (Lanark)
Lynn, R. J.
Willoughby, Lieut.-Col. Hon. Claud


Elveden, Viscount
Mackinder, Sir H. J. (Camiachle)
Wilson, Daniel M. (Down, West)


Eyres-Monsell, Commander B. M.
McLaren, Robert (Lanark, Northern)
Wilson, Colonel Leslie O. (Reading)


Falle, Major Sir Bertram G.
M'Lean, Lieut.-Col. Charles W. W.
Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir M. (Bethnal Gn.)


Farquharson, Major A. C.
McMicking, Major Gilbert
Wilson-Fox, Henry


Fisher, Rt. Hon. Herbert A. L.
Macpherson, Rt. Hon. James I.
Wise, Frederick


Flannery, Sir James Fortescue
Macquisten, F. A.
Wood, Sir J. (Stalybridge & Hyde)


Ford, Patrick Johnston
Malone, Major P. B. (Tottenham, S.)
Wood, Major Sir S. Hill- (High Peak)


Forestier-Walker, L.
Manville, Edward
Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.


Forrest, Walter
Marks, Sir George Croydon
Yate, Colonel Sir Charles Edward


Foxcroft, Captain Charles Talbot
Mildmay, Colonel Rt. Hon. F. B.
Young, Lieut.-Com. E. H. (Norwich)


France, Gerald Ashburner
Mitchell, William Lane
Younger, Sir George


Fraser, Major Sir Keith
Moles, Thomas
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.
Molson, Major John Elsdale
Mr. Dudley Ward and Colonel Sir


Gardiner, James
Morden, Lieut.-Col. W. Grant
R. Sanders.


NOES.


Acland, Rt. Hon. F. D.
Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Finney, Samuel


Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)
Cape, Thomas
Galbraith, Samuel


Barnes, Major H. (Newcastle, E.)
Carter, W. (Nottingham, Mansfield)
Glanville, Harold James


Bell, James (Lancaster, Ormskirk)
Davies, A (Lancaster, Clitheroe)
Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)


Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.
Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)
 Graham, R. (Nelson and Colne)


Bramsdon, Sir Thomas
Edwards, G. (Norfolk, South)
Graham, W. (Edinburgh, Central)


Bromfield, William
Entwistle, Major C. F.
Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)




Grundy, T. W.
Lunn, William
Swan, J. E.


Guest, J. (York, W. R., Hemsworth)
Morgan, Major D. Watts
Thomas, Rt. Hon. James H. (Derby)


Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton)
Newbould, Alfred Ernest
Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)


Hallas, Eldred
Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)
Townshend, Sir Charles Vere Ferrers


Hancock, John George
Poison, Sir Thomas
Walsh, Stephen (Lancaster, Ince)


Hartshorn, Vernon
Rees, Capt. J. Tudor- (Barnstaple)
Waterson, A. E.


Hayday, Arthur
Rendall, Athelstan
White, Charles F. (Derby, Western)


Hayward, Major Evan
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Wignall, James


Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Widnes)
Rose, Frank H.
Williams, Aneurin (Durham, Consett)


Hirst, G. H.
Royce, William Stapleton
Williams, John (Glamorgan, Gower)


Hodge, Rt. Hon. John
Sexton, James
Wilson, W. Tyson (Westhoughton)


Irving, Dan
Shaw, Thomas (Preston)
Wintringham, T.


John, William (Rhondda, West)
Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)
Wood, Major M. M. (Aberdeen, C.)


Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown)
Sitch, Charles H.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Kenyon, Barnet
Spencer, George A.
Mr. Neil Maclean and Mr. Hogge.


Lawson, John J.
Spoor, B. G.



Question put, and agreed to.

It being after a Quarter-past Eight of the Clock, and leave having been given to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 10, further Proceeding was postponed, without Question put.

MINISTRY OF MUNITIONS.

DOCUMENTS (ALLEGED IRREGULARITIES).

Captain LOSEBY: I beg to move, "That this House do now adjourn."
I am fully aware of the gravity of the step that I have taken and of the allegations that I am going to make, and I ask the House to accept my assurance that I did not act until unsought information compelled me to the conclusion that a clear public duty had been forced upon me. Nor did I neglect to take other steps to get an investigation by an impartial tribunal. I hope the House will realise that there is a personal side of this matter. I realise perfectly well that certain information did come to me in a rather surprising manner, and I think the House will bear with me in seeking to explain how that information came into my hands. If, therefore, they will let me just tell the story from the beginning, when rumours first reached me, I shall be glad.
Some time ago, when information of a literally amazing nature concerning the methods of the Accounts Liquidation Committee first reached me, I was unable to believe them. I regarded it as rumour—idle gossip. I did, nevertheless, take the precaution of taking my informant himself to a responsible person in the Ministry of Munitions, who, much to my relief, reassured me. I am not sure now that I ought to have been reassured
as easily as I was. A little time after that my original informant, who was an ex-service man—I have been peculiarly in touch with ex-service men, particularly in the Civil Service—came to me bringing with him another who said that he himself was actually present when an order was given him by one, Mr. Sutton, who then was a member of the Accounts Liquidation Committee of the Ministry of Munitions, that is to say, the Committee that dealt with contractors' claims. That order was given to him personally with some 25 or 26 others to destroy the working papers. At that time, in order to come quickly to my point, he made a statement which I have in the form of a statutory declaration which I propose now to read to the House. The House will understand that for obvious reasons at the present moment I have been compelled to introduce fictitious names, though, of course, the affidavit is in my possession sworn by the actual man:
I, Thomas Jones, of 17, Bloomsbury Square, in the County of London, Civil Servant, temporarily employed in the ledger accounts Department of the Ministry of Munitions, do solemnly and sincerely declare as follows: I attended a meeting at the latter end of October or early in November"—
this was in 1920.
Convened by Mr. Sutton and attended by the heads of ledger groups and ledger investigators. After a preliminary discussion as to the reason of the meeting, Mr. Sutton made reference to the manner in which the accounts were to be settled, and gave instructions that all working papers were to be destroyed. He then gave his reason for the order, which was that Exchequer and Audit would be unable to ascertain and find out how the settlements were arrived at. After Mr. Sutton's order, regarding the working papers was given, a certain Mr. de Jersey at the meeting made the remark: 'Do you want us all put in gaol?' Considerable discussion followed, wherein we were given to under-
stand that we were to cover up all traces so that Exchequer and Audit would have difficulty in ascertaining the figures comprised in various settlements. I make this solemn declaration, etc.
I hold some four or five almost identically similar affidavits from people who were actually present. I hold two affidavits from people who received consequential orders, that is to say, from people who were not themselves present at the meeting but, being subordinates, received the order from people who were present to destroy the working papers. I was unable to understand them. I felt that there must be some explanation, and I went to an important person and asked him to tell me frankly what the reason of it was, that there must be some explanation and I could not understand it, and that person, at any rate, convinced me that he knew nothing about it. He convinced me that the Government knew nothing about it, and he told me that my proper course was to go to the Minister of Munitions. Accordingly, I did so, and I regard the interview that I had with the Minister of Munitions as being of vital importance. I am going to tell the House frankly what happened at that interview. My recollection on the point is as clear as anything could possibly be.
I saw the Minister, who very kindly granted me an interview immediately. I asked him every possible question—I am referring to Lord Inverforth. I asked him if in any conceivable circumstances an Order to destroy working papers could be justified, and the reply I got immediately was, in no possible circumstances. I then stated that I was in a position to prove that such an Order to destroy working papers had been given. I got, of course, the natural answer—that it was quite impossible, and I asked him to accept my assurance that such was the fact, that a responsible person had called together his subordinates and instructed them to destroy working papers. He asked me whether it was before a settlement or after a settlement. He subsequently—and this is important—told me that of course I should understand that the extreme bulk of these papers might make their destruction necessary, and that he could not tell. The Order might have been given by the head of the Department. An official was called in, and an official of whom I had some suspicion, and Lord Inverforth agreed that I should put any question to him. I asked him if at
any time he himself had given any Order to destroy working papers. He said "No." I asked, "Have you received any such Order?" He said "No." I asked him if he would have been bound to have known if such an Order had been given, and he said "Yes." Then I said, "You have all your working papers still in your possession?" He said "Yes." I asked him how he found space to house them. He told me that that was a perfectly simple matter and that he had them all.
I am glad to see the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Munitions in his place, because he will be able to check me in my statement. I eventually came to an arrangement with the Minister by which I should be confronted by three individuals. I knew the names of the people who had been at that meeting. As far as I remember three names were taken at random. Mr. Sutton, who had given the order, was to be one, and it was arranged that same afternoon that I was to be confronted by these three officials. Again I am compelled to give an exact account of what followed. I went for the sole purpose of giving the Minister certain information for his own private ear, but I found when I arrived—it was only courtesy on the part of the Minister—that the Minister himself and the Parliamentary Secretary, and, I think, five highly-placed officials of the Ministry, were waiting for me. I was asked to make my case. Someone used the words that he would tell me something in confidence. I begged him to do no such thing because I was unable to regard that meeting as confidential. I took a careful note in the presence of the Parliamentary Secretary, and I read that note out as I took it and it was checked by the individual. I regarded these witnesses, if I may use a legal phrase, as hostile witnesses, and what was said had to be dragged out of them. First of all Mr. Castell attended, and he stated something to this effect: Upon one occasion the heads of ledger departments were called together by Mr. Sutton, who gave them orders that working papers were to be kept in such a way that Exchequer and Audit were not to have access to them. In reply to further questions he said that undoubtedly such an order would make him suspicious. I asked him, "Suspicious of what?" Then he corrected himself and said that suspicion was not
the right word to use. Then the Minister took up the examination and these words were used. "My impression was that we were so to keep things that Exchequer and Audit were not to nose into things too much."
Mr. Sutton, the man who had given the original order, was then called. Frankly, I had hoped that Mr. Sutton would begin by saying: "Yes, I did give that order, and this is my reason for giving the order." He did nothing of the kind. He began by saying, in answer to my question: "I have not at any time given orders that working papers should be destroyed nor any similar orders." I then read out to him what Mr. Castell had said, and in the presence of the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary, he said, that there was no word "destroy" used there; "I agree that Mr. Castell's version is the correct version." I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will put me right now if my recollection has carried me astray. I am bound to make a serious point here. The Minister of Munitions knows what working papers are; he knows their importance. In his presence a subordinate official ackowledged that he had given orders to conceal vital documents from Exchequer and Audit, but to my amazement it came to my ears something like a fortnight later that that man was still retained in his position, or rather that the Accounts Liquidation Committee had given him a post of still further responsibility. I come now to the nature of the inquiry that I was offered. I do not think I am entitled to give the exact names of the Departmental Committee suggested, for the letter in which they appear is marked "Private."

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of MUNITIONS (Mr. James Hope): By all means read the whole correspondence.

Captain LOSEBY: I will explain the reason why I felt it was of vital importance that the matter should not go before this particular Committee. For the names of most of the Committee I have the most complete respect. The Committee were to be: The Parliamentary Secretary (Chairman), Mr. Barrie, the Joint Secretary to the Ministry, the Legal Secretary to the Ministry, the Assistant Secretary to the Ministry and the Secre-
tary to the Ministry. In view of the allegations which I think I have made perfectly clear, I cannot see how the Minister of Munitions, upon consideration, could imagine that I would submit my case and my witnesses before that particular Committee. What, in fact, are these papers, and why do I allege that they are of vital importance? The phrase used in every case by the people who swear to the affidavits is a technical phrase, "Working papers." They say, "We were instructed to destroy our working papers." What are working papers? The House and many people outside will be aware that the books kept in the Ministry of Munitions were of the sketchiest possible description. In view of the difficulties of the War, who would blame them for that? When it comes to settling some contractors' claims it is found in fact that the same contractor has books and accounts with different Departments of the Ministry. It is a matter of extreme difficulty to find out precisely what a contractor's claim is. The Ministry very wisely appointed certain people called "investigators" to investigate the accounts of different contractors. They collected the items from the different ledgers, and the bulk items were put into a ledger known as the key ledger, but in practice—and this is the vital point—it was in fact discovered that a very great number of the credits and debits which could undoubtedly be proved were not in any ledger at all. They were not entered upon the key ledger, but they were put upon certain papers called working papers. It amounts therefore to this—and this is the assertion I make—that working papers are certain papers peculiar to the Ministry of Munitions and that they are in fact a kind of supplementary book.
I checked myself upon this with the greatest possible care, and this is my allegation, which I am prepared to submit to any tribunal, that there are certain transactions which appear in working papers and working papers alone, and it is quite obvious that if you destroy these working papers you are destroying papers of vital importance. Of course, I am not suggesting that any particular voucher does not remain, but these working papers serve another purpose. They serve the purpose of entering the credits and debits discovered in search of the settlement. I have seen many of them and compared
them with entries in the key ledger, and on these working papers were also entered the summary of the particular contractor's claim for the purpose of the Settlement Committee who had to make the final settlement with the contractor. I think I must give one particular illustration, from memory. I will not give the name, but we will say some aeroplane company. This is what the key ledger showed. It showed only a debit of £33,000. The working papers show, as the result of the investigators' investigation, a debit of £33,000; and then on the credit side: proved claims, £11,000; unproved claims, £11,000; unsupported, very doubtful, £250; say for final settlement, £750. The items £11,000, £11,000, £250 do not appear in anything in the nature of a book any where, but upon the working papers. I could give many illustrations, sometimes debit, and sometimes credit, and if I am giving a wrong illustration, then an investigation will show where I am wrong. This working paper is, of course, then taken to the Committee, which was called the Accounts Liquidation Committee and consisted of three gentlemen, to whom I shall have to refer again—Messrs. Sutton, Hewitt, and Barber—and holding this document in their hands they effected the compromise in regard to what actually—

Mr. HOPE: The Committee to which my hon. and gallant Friend is referring is not the Accounts Liquidation Committee but a Committee subordinate to them.

9.0 P.M.

Captain LOSEBY: It is the body that in fact arranged with the contractor in a vast number of cases the exact terms upon which the settlement would be made, and signed in their own names the official agreement. I would go further, and I would tell the Parliamentary Secretary something else, that although this particular committee of three was allowed to settle a vast number of accounts, no fewer than 15 to 20 individuals and subordinates settled those accounts practically alone; and I will give the Parliamentary Secretary particulars of them, and they were countersigned by some other subordinate. What, in fact, would the effect be of the destruction of such documents? I repeat, with a full sense of responsibility and unhesitatingly, that they are a kind of supplementary book. This is my suggestion: First of all, that these documents are unusual
documents, peculiar to this particular Committee, the Accounts Liquidation Committee of the Ministry of Munitions, and their absence would not necessarily excite comment by Exchequer and Audit, if they did not see anything of them. I assert—and this on investigation will be found to be the fact—that without working papers, the books of the Ministry of Munitions being what they are, the audit is a matter of extreme difficulty; in fact, it would be an impossibility. I say that any Members of the Committee have only to do this—they have to make the endeavour to audit their books, call for working, papers, and when working papers are forthcoming, audit them, and then to make the attempt to audit them without these additional books, the results in some cases of days and weeks of work recorded nowhere else, and they will realise in an hour's investigation what their vital importance is.
I am going to venture to give the House a reason for their destruction, because possibly it might not be what some hon. Members have come to the conclusion that it must be. I have stated that the books of the Ministry of Munitions were in an almost impossible condition. Therefore, I suggest that two things would occur to any business man, and the Committee responsible for settlement know that auditors would ask this. I say that two things would occur—first of all, that, where it is fair to do so, contractors must be put to the strictest possible proof of their claim. Secondly, where that is not fair to do so—and in some cases it would obviously be not fair—then it is the duty of any settlement committee to make use of any documents in the possession of the Ministry for the purpose of checking those claims. In fact, in this particular instance, an investigating body will discover that much was not done owing to the hurry and the rush to settle these accounts. Contracts for settlement and cheques in final settlement were given before the result of investigators had come in, and before inquiries had been made from three vital Departments, namely, material supplied on repayment, loans to contractors, and re-issues.
What is the result of that? I will give one particular account. It is the account of Allan and Symonds. After a month—we will say the month of November—that particular firm wrote stating that the
indebtedness of the Government to themselves was £9,000. One month later than that, so far as I can ascertain, without any intervening transaction, they were paid the sum of £18,000 in final settlement, and within a week a voucher for £6,000 came into possession of the Accounts Liquidation Committee. I believe that an investigating committee will find in very many cases documents showing great indebtedness on the part of contractors to the Government which have not even been entered upon the working papers for which cheques in final settlement have been given. It is perfectly obvious that, under these circumstances, possibly realising that an audit had to be faced, the particular individual had every reason in the world for destroying or concealing vital documents recording actual transactions, and showing that payments had been made without the advice, or against the advice, of investigators and greatly in excess, in certain cases, of those amounts.
I do not want to place it too high, and I think at this point I should make this statement, that anybody who has inquired into the working of this particular Accounts Liquidation Committee during the past three months must realise that the public themselves, and I am not sure this House itself, must accept some responsibility for this sinister and culminating instance. There is no doubt that, with the closing down of that Ministry threatened and forced upon them, I freely agree this particular Accounts Liquidation Committee adopted methods that would at no time be tolerated—because I have got details—in order to effect something like a massacre of these accounts which were standing in the way of the closing down of business. Of this there is no doubt, first, that this highly wrongful order was given; secondly, that the working papers, an order to destroy or cancel which was given, are vital documents.

Lieut-Colonel J. WARD: How many of them were destroyed?

Captain LOSEBY: That I am unable to say. I know that the order was given. No general countermanding order was given. They may have been or they may not have been. I ought to have explained to the House that at that particular meeting, when the order was given, there was an immediate hubbub by the sub-
ordinate persons, who wanted to know where they came in, and I believe, although I am not clear upon this, that the particular phrase of "Concealing, covering up your traces, losing—anything you like, so long as the Exchequer and Audit do not get at them," was given. It is hard to believe that it is possible to recover them all. There is no doubt whatever that this particular act of grave importance was taken. It was not done without a reason. The House, first of all, will say, "How could it be possible that one individual should call together thirty other individuals and then make this damning confession?" Of course, the answer to that is that, most unfortunately, this Official Secrets Act does make certain Civil servants think it is impossible to do anything to get outside these laws, and, undoubtedly, in this particular case, the false security given by the Official Secrets Act led to this particular order. I have been anxious not to make insinuations. I have been anxious not to make my case too high, or to act prematurely, but it is clear to any thinking person that such a grave order was not given without some very sufficient reason, and I ask for this investigating committee not only to inquire as to whether this particular order was given or not, but to look right into some of these settlements affected by the Accounts Liquidation Committee. There cannot be, I am sorry to say—and I myself know enough to be able to say—any doubt as to some of the lamentable things they will discover. Much more than that, I do venture most respectfully to urge upon the House that in the interests of the Civil Service itself—and this has appealed to me vastly more than any sums of money which may have been lost—I say that this kind of thing would debauch the whole Civil Service, and I cannot help feeling it is not a bad thing to have this right out in this House itself. Everyone knows there is not one person in this House on the Government Benches or elsewhere who would have this continued for one moment, but, I repeat, things have been done—I do not know-through the fault of anyone—but things have been done in our country during the past five years that made one think we were sinking to the level of some of the Continental Powers.
I feel that at all costs it is time for a clean sweep up. One word more in regard to this particular question. I feel that
the Government will grant this Committee for which I ask, and I do hope that it will be of a satisfactory nature and really be able to find out what this House wants to discover. I hope some person of high judicial experience, possibly an ex-judge, possibly an officer of this House such as the Controller and Auditor-General, and one senior Member of this House would form an adequate tribunal. I frankly acknowledge that owing to the peculiar political position I hold the facts of this case have come to my knowledge through certain ex-service men at present holding responsible positions in the Ministry of Munitions. I hope the House will realise the great courage and the great public spirit shown by these men, who are not scandal-mongers, nor whisperers, and latterly would not tolerate what they felt they were in certain cases expected to do. They had everything to lose and nothing to gain by their action. Whatever the Leader of the House is able to promise me as a result of this Debate I am confident that he will promise this: that none of these men for whom I personally have the most complete admiration—because I am convinced their public spirit alone has actuated them—shall suffer. I am afraid I have presented this case inadequately, but I am sure the House will acquit me of anything but a desire to do what I believed to be my public duty.

Mr. CLEMENT EDWARDS: I beg to second the Motion. I have had the opportunity of going through and testing a great deal of the evidence which has been adduced in the form of sworn affidavits, and I say unhesitatingly that the volume of that sworn evidence is such as to justify the setting up of a strong tribunal of investigation—in the interests of honest and pure administration. Frankly I was disappointed this afternoon with the statement made by the Leader of the House. I was more than amazed knowing what I know in this matter when he got up and gave the assurance of the Minister of Munitions that there was no foundation for the allegations which were implied in the questions of my learned and gallant Friend. I knew the circumstances beforehand, when that meeting, which has been given in some detail by my hon. Friend, and was arranged, which took place before the Minister; and it seems to me to be an amazing thing that he denied what that particular individual, Mr. Sutton,
there admitted, that he had given an order for the concealment of these vital papers from the only people who in the interest of public purity mattered, the Exchequer and Audit Department of the Treasury. I only want to use that—because I am not going to take up the time of the House—for the purpose of saying it is an impossible and unthinkable proposition after that assurance from the Minister that there should be a Departmental inquiry and only that, and that that Committee should be from the Department over which the gentleman I have named presides. I say prima facie the thing is exceedingly ugly. This Committee to which reference has been made has had the settling of contracts for money amounting to a great many millions. Secondly, they have not, in many of these settlements, had before them the investigators which they themselves appointed. Thirdly, they have not, in many cases, before them the working papers from these investigators, but they have settled behind closed doors without the investigators, or the working papers, and without the sworn statements which are now in existence. I do not suggest, looking at the thing from a very human point of view, and with some experience of what happens in cases when people destroy or conceal papers, that what happened behind those doors ought to be investigated, and will show the exact motive for not having the investigators present, and for telling investigators either to destroy these papers or conceal them from the Audit Department of the Treasury.
This matter is spread over a great many weeks, and I attach very great importance indeed to these sworn statements. The House will bear in mind that these statements are sworn to by officials in the Department. If these statements to which they have sworn are untrue, it not only means that they are going to lose their positions, but it also means that they have laid themselves open to be prosecuted for perjury. Yet, in spite of these things, a large number of the subordinate officials in this Ministry have come forward and have sworn affidavits. I say that I have seen them. I say frankly to the House of Commons that, with those facts in their minds, and with the responsibility of our trusteeship for the honesty of administration in this
country, and particularly of the Government, who are supremely responsible, there is no alternative but to grant without delay a judicial inquiry that shall be above suspicion to investigate to the very dregs the allegations that are implied in this case.

Mr. ACLAND: As I have had just a little connection with questions of this kind as Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, although, of course, I have not been concerned with my hon. Friends in this case, and know nothing about it at all, I think it will be right for me very briefly to put the House in possession of what has come before the Public Accounts Committee, and may be germane—I think all my colleagues on the Committee would agree it is germane—to matters put forward this evening. First of all, one has to make clear the sort of attitude which Departments are concerned in concluding these big War contracts have got to the Audit Office. If, for instance, it were the practice of the Audit Office to be over meticulous and exacting and bothering in their methods of auditing and probing, then perhaps there would be in the minds of some people at any rate some justification for an attitude of trying to conceal papers. It so happens that at the beginning of the Session before last the Chancellor of the Exchequer, speaking after dinner somewhere—I have not looked it up, and I do not intend to make any sort of suggestion against the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but he was dealing with the question whether the staffs of departments winding up after the war were worth their salaries and whether the winding up processes were really time well spent—made something which seemed to me almost a suggestion that there might be staffs of accountants under the Comptroller and Auditor-General who might try to make too detailed a survey and to spend money without finding out anything worth discovering. Therefore, as Chairman of the Committee, I made it part of my duty as each accounting officer came before us, to ask whether, in his experience or that of his officers, the officers of the Comptroller and Auditor-General had acted in that way, and whether he thought in his department that the necessity of answering all the Audit Office queries which might be made on these matters was really vexatious business which meant
reading a large number of papers which might probably be destroyed or going into a lot of minute papers? With one voice, and I was almost tired of asking the question, they said they had no complaint to make as to the method in which the staff of the Audit Office discharged the very necessary duties imposed on them by this House.
It must be borne in mind that on the whole these winding-up Departments were working in close sympathy with, and harmony with, the Audit Office staffs which were employed in those Departments. Coming closer to the point, I think it is within my recollection that this particular Department in the Ministry of Munitions was held by the Comptroller and Auditor-General and his officers to have been doing particularly good work. It was very difficult work, very technical work. It was very difficult indeed to bring some of these accounts to anything that could be called a satisfactory conclusion. The Comptroller and Auditor-General held, and the Public Accounts Committee held, that the appointment of these investigating staffs was necessary to co-ordinate all the different items of claim and counter-claim between these contractors and the Government, and that the whole of the operations of the investigating departments were thoroughly welcomed by the Comptroller and Auditor-General and all the members of his staff. I can imagine, although I do not know the details of the method, that these papers on which all the different claims and counter-claims were finally considered, and the papers on which these investigators did the work, would be really very essential, and that their careful examination would be very essential. It was a fact, owing no doubt to the speed with which the Ministry of Munitions had to be evolved and built up during the War, that there was no proper method of bringing together in one and the same ledger the different personal transactions with firms so that they could really be seen on the ledger account. There were different departments responsible for placing a contract and issuing supplies of the material with which the contract had to be carried out. There were cases which came before us where loans to contractors had not been properly entered, and were not known to the Department which actually made the contract, and so on. There
was no blaming anybody. A great deal of material had to be brought together from the different departments of the Ministry and different officers before any of the final bills of these contractors could be settled. I can quite imagine that no ledgers kept currently would contain all the proper items, but only the final work of these very expert people, who were created specially, could bring all the claims and counter-claims, with materials and loans and re-issues, and the rest of it, into one general conspectus in order to arrive at the final settlement. If these papers seem likely to have been really important, and to have been the only papers which could really show how a settlement was arrived at; if a Department of this kind were working in the most friendly way generally with the officers of the Comptroller and Auditor-General in effecting these settlements; if the officers of the Comptroller and Auditor - General realised, as well as hon. Members of this House realise, that there must be a certain amount of give and take, and that you cannot have an absolutely definite settlement, but you must set one thing against another; if they realised that as well as the officers conducting these negotiations, what justification can there be for anyone in this position, who had anything to do with these special investigations, suggesting to any of his staff that papers must be concealed, or that they should not come under the purview of the Audit Office officials?
That is the point. It is not as if the Audit Office offici[...] were doing anything hostile, or did not understand perfectly the necessity of bringing this together on some general conspectus, and settling it on a give and take method, or were not thoroughly alive to the necessity of having the thing over and done with and settled somehow, and the papers very likely burned and got out of the way when they were working with the Departments and helping them to arrive at this settlement. There was, therefore, no justification for any officer of the Department doing anything without regarding the officers of the Audit Office as his very best friend. I am perfectly certain if any officer of the Department had applied at any time to Sir Henry Gibson, the Comptroller and Auditor-General, or any of his staff, and had said: "Have you done with these papers; are you satisfied
that you will never want to look at these papers again; may we burn and destroy these papers?" Sir Henry Gibson would have given a perfectly satisfactory and commonsense answer, and would have said, "Certainly, I am the last person who wants to insist on the meticulous keeping of papers I do not want to lock at again."

Sir H CRAIK: I think the right hon. Gentleman will agree that the only person who was the proper judge whether these papers were necessary or pertinent to the case at all was the Comptroller and Auditor-General.

Mr. ACLAND: That is why, in that instance, and in that instance only, I mentioned his name.

Sir H. CRAIK: He is the only one.

Mr. ACLAND: Yes, I ought not to have said members of his staff.

Sir H. CRAIK: And no one in the spending Departments. It was not for the spending Departments, but for the Comptroller and Auditor-General alone.

Mr. ACLAND: I quite agree, and that was really the purport of my remarks. I wanted to point out the fact that application had only to be made to the Comptroller and Auditor-General and he was the proper person. If the conditions were as I have described, I cannot conceive that he would vexatiously refuse his consent, or do anything to unduly burden or worry officers of Departments. We seem to have had a primâ facie case made out that some officer in the Ministry of Munitions has doubtless suggested to his subordinates that matters should be in some way concealed from the Audit Office officials, who are officers of this House, and I join with hon. Members in thinking that that is a matter which requires something more than an enquiry before a Committee consisting solely of officers of the Department concerned. I do think that as the matter has been raised before this House, and as it is one which closely concerns officers of this House like the Comptroller and Auditor-General and his staff, it would only be right if the Government would still like the Chairman of the Enquiry to be the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Munitions because the House would trust him absolutely, that there should be associated with him other hon. Members of this House, such as experienced members of the Public Ac-
counts Committee, like the hon. Member for West Dorset (Colonel Sir R. Williams) the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Scottish Universities (Sir H. Craik) or the hon. and gallant Member for Norwich (Lieut.-Commander Hilton Young) who have already done very valuable work, and they might have joined to them as assessors to assist them, the Comptroller and Auditor-General, who can say at once whether certain records were regarded as necessary by his Department; and there might also be with them one of the junior officers of accounts (Mr. Watson) who is well acquainted with these investigations. I only make a definite suggestion in order that the Government should not be able to say that no definite suggestions have been made. If the Government would substitute for a Committee consisting only of departmental officers, a Committee formed on some such lines as I have suggested, I am sure their findings would carry more conviction to the House.

Mr. BONAR LAW: My first acquaintance with this matter was about a couple of hours before I answered the question put to me to-day, and I did not have it before me in time to have more than a very few minutes' conversation on the subject with my Noble Friend Lord Inverforth. The result was that I was informed that there was no foundation for the allegations made by my hon. and gallant Friend (Captain Loseby). At question time I expressed the view that obviously if a primâ facie case could be made out for the allegations of my hon. and gallant Friend, it is clearly the duty of the Government to have an inquiry which would satisfy the House of Commons. I felt that at once, and it is for this reason that I am addressing the House now, instead of asking the Under-Secretary to do so. I am sure it will be agreed that, obviously, it is impossible for the House of Commons to judge of the value of the case presented by my hon. and gallant Friend. Anyone who has had a long experience of the House of Commons in cases of this kind, or who has even a layman's knowledge only of the law, knows that a case, if put with ability and fairness, as this was, is absolutely convincing until you hear the other side.
It would be quite imposible for us to judge the merits of this question as it
stands. The real question is whether or not a sufficient case has been made out for granting the kind of inquiry for which my hon. and gallant Friend has asked. I am not complaining, and I know that my hon. Friend did communicate with the Ministry of Munitions, but I should have liked him to have given me a little more of the primâ facie evidence which convinced him. Had he done so I think it is quite possible that some kind of Committee like that suggested by my right hon. Friend (Mr. Acland) would have been quite sufficient to meet the case; but since my hon. Friend has brought the matter forward in this formal way before the House of Commons, and it will appear in the Press and will make a primâ facie case in the eyes of the public, it is necessary to meet it. The mere fact of this discussion makes it in the interests of the Minister of Munitions that there should be an inquiry which will satisfy everybody.
My hon. and gallant Friend who moved this Motion made no suggestion, no personal suggestion, against my Noble Friend Lord Inverforth, and I must say quite frankly that if the granting of the inquiry had been considered in any degree as a reflection upon the Minister, I would have taken any consequences rather than intervene. But that is not the case. I am not going to argue the case put by my hon. and gallant Friend, but I think it right to say that my Noble Friend, with whom I dismissed the question, says he has been told that this order to destroy the papers was not given. I know my hon. and gallant Friend (Captain Loseby) has given us an account of a conversation, and I am sure he is repeating exactly what in his view took place. That conversation, however, lasted an hour or two, and recollection of the exact words is very difficult to be sure of, when no note was taken. My hon. and gallant Friend thinks the case is exactly as he has stated it, but my Noble Friend assures me that there is not a single case of any kind connected with those accounts for which all the working papers are not available. My Noble Friend may be mistaken, and if so there is nobody will be better pleased to have the whole thing cleared up than my Noble Friend if he has been misled; but he does not think he has been misled. With all respect to my hon. and gallant Friend, I think it is possible that, in spite of the good faith he has advanced of all those who have given him their
testimony, it may be found that there is really no substance in them, and certainly I should not be prepared to risk any money on the allegations which have been made, because I have heard many cases of this kind before. That, however, does not alter the matter as regards the House of Commons. The fact is that this is a serious charge, a very serious charge. I am glad that my hon. and gallant Friend suggested that there might be other motives besides corruption, and that it might have been due to carelessness. That is quite possible. But even if that were the reason, it does not make it any the less reprehensible on the part of those responsible for conduct of this kind.
Under these circumstances, I am perfectly ready to grant an inquiry, and I think it is better to do it—in spite of what my right hon. Friend has said—now it has gone so far—better to do it somewhat on the lines suggested by my right hon. Friend; and I say this, not only to satisfy the House, but because the Minister of Munitions himself is very anxious that, since there is to be an inquiry, it should be one that will command confidence in all quarters. What I propose is such a Committee as was set up before by this House in a similar case—a Committee consisting of a judge, if we can get one, and I have one in my mind, whom I shall try to get, who is well known to Members of this House. There ought also to be a well-known business man, who is above suspicion in cases of this kind, and the third member—I do not think there should be more than three—should be a good public accountant. As to the terms of reference, I do not think it possible to give the exact wording to-night, but, in substance, they will provide for an inquiry into, and a report upon, the allegations contained in my hon. Friend's question.
I can assure the House that nobody is more anxious than are the Government, if there has been irregularity, to find it out, and to ascertain the steps adopted by those responsible. It is perfectly true that during the War the Ministry of Munitions had a gigantic task, and started with a system of book-keeping which would not have been allowed in ordinary times. That point has been discussed on a number of occasions, and although there has been a great improvement in this respect, it may be that something of the
old methods may still obtain in regard to contracts going back a long period of years. I am quite sure that a Committee such as I have suggested will look at a question of this kind with a broad mind, taking into account all the circumstances before coming to a decision.

Sir F. BANBURY: Will it not be necessary to have a Bill empowering the Committee to take evidence on oath?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I think not. My right hon. Friend may perhaps remember another Committee of exactly the same kind in connection with which the same difficulty was raised, where in fact it was found it could get all the evidence it desired without having statutory powers.

Mr. J. H. THOMAS: Two facts emerge from to-day's proceedings which will be generally acceptable to the country. The first is the readiness of this House of Commons, immediately it hears serious allegations being made, to promptly give further opportunity to the hon. Member making them to raise the issue, and the second is satisfaction that the Government should have met the demand in the way it has. This is a charge against civil servants. There is no department of public life and no body of public servants in this country whose reputation this House of Commons ought more jealously to guard than the Civil Service. Therefore, something having been said which reflects upon that service, of which we are all so proud, we are entitled to say that the first opportunity should be given it in order to clear itself from the charge if possible. I am sure my right hon. Friend did not intend to overlook one important condition, and that was that just as the Government is desirous to court full and frank and open inquiry, it is equally anxious to protect those who believe that they are serving the public interest by giving the facts which they have disclosed. In other words, it should be made abundantly clear that no man, high or low, whatever his position may be, will suffer for giving evidence before the inquiry. I am quite sure my right hon. Friend will be ready to acquiesce in this suggestion. My hon. Friend who brought this matter forward is to be congratulated on his action and the Government are equally to be congratulated on the prompt steps they have taken to meet the charge. I hope that a fair and impartial inquiry will be held,
an inquiry which will deal with the facts, and that there will be a clear and definite understanding that people are free to give evidence without fear of suffering in any way whatever for so doing.

Sir H. CRAIK: While I congratulate the Leader of the House on the way in which he has met my hon. Friend, I cannot but express some doubt whether the Committee which he has sketched out is sufficiently large. No doubt the presence of a Judge as Chairman will ensure that great confidence is felt in it. I am glad also that it should contain a good business man, but I venture to suggest to my right hon. Friend the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee that we have seen there has been in some of the accounts submitted to us a considerable neglect of the older traditions of the Civil Service, and we have also found that those accustomed to ordinary business transactions sometimes neglect the severer, more methodical, and more secure rules that prevail in the Civil Service. I think, therefore, it would be a great pity if within the Committee there were not included someone representing the Comptroller and Auditor-General, or someone acquainted with the conditions and scrupulous habits of care and regularity which are considered essential in keeping public accounts. A business man in business life may adopt some course of procedure convenient to himself and the course of his business, which may be perfectly legitimate, but he may also forget what is present to the man who is accustomed to the administration of public offices, that rules must be strictly obeyed, that they cannot be put in force for one occasion only, and that a breach of precedent constitutes a very great danger. The Committee sketched by the Leader of the House is considerably lacking, in that there is no provision for anyone who will be acquainted with those traditions, either through the Civil Service, the Comptroller and Auditor-General, or the Committee on Public Accounts.

10.0 P.M.

Mr. SEDDON: I am sure that all the Members of this House will appreciate the readiness of the right hon. Gentleman to accept the fullest inquiry into the charges and allegations that have been made. My hon. and gallant Friend has not come to make this matter a coward's
castle. This question has exercised his mind for weeks. He consulted many of those with whom he is associated, and his feeling was so strong that he was prepared to bring the matter forward entirely on his own account, in order that a thorough inquiry might be undertaken. Apart from the satisfaction that the acceptance of such an inquiry gives to those who desire a clear Civil Service, there are two reasons why I am glad that this inquiry is going to take place. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will give us an assurance that, whatever may be the form of the Committee, it will be a Committee that can take evidence on oath. If not, its value will be to a large extent vitiated, and the public will not accept it with the same confidence and assurance that they would feel if all the evidence were taken on oath. My first reason for wishing this to be a searching official inquiry is the protection of the Civil Service as a whole. Rumours have been current in every direction that there has been corruption in certain Government Departments in the handling of great sums of money, and those rumours should be laid low on behalf of that great body of Civil servants which we are proud to know is honest and can be trusted. It is rumoured that, under the stress of war, the old tradition of the Civil Service has been destroyed. A new element has been brought into the Service, and it is in regard to that new element, largely, that these allegations have been made. Therefore, on behalf both of the old Civil servants and of that new element which has been brought in from great commercial undertakings, a searching inquiry is essential. Hon. Members of this House have told us times without number that what we wanted was a business Government. The greater proportion of those gentlemen who have been brought in to undertake the duties of civil servants, especially in the new Departments, were gentlemen trained in over commercial undertakings, and men of business capacity. Therefore, an inquiry should be held to protect and re-establish the good name of our old civil servants, and at the same time, if the allegations are wrong, we can say that not only the old civil servants, but the men who came in to assist the country in the trying times of war stand as high in regard to honesty and probity as those who served us before
the War. My hon. and gallant Friend has done a public service in bringing this matter forward; but I feel that that service would not be effective unless the right hon. Gentleman can give us the definite assurance to-night that the inquiry will be such as to permit of the evidence being taken upon oath. If that is done, I am sure that the Mover and Seconder of the Motion, and, I think, the whole House, will be satisfied to await the findings of that inquiry.

Sir F. BANBURY: I asked the right hon. Gentleman a short time ago whether it would not be necessary to have an Act of Parliament in order to enable the Committee which he is going to set up to take evidence on oath. The right hon. Gentleman replied that he did not think that that was necessary. I have, however, in the meantime put the question to distinguished lawyers, and I think I am right in saying that without a Bill it will be impossible for the Committee to take evidence on oath. I venture to suggest to the Leader of the House that he could without any difficulty, after 11 o'clock on any evening, pass a Bill through all its stages to enable the Committee to take evidence on oath. I do not think that there would be a single dissentient voice in any quarter of the House. In the interests of the Civil Service itself, I feel that, unless this Committee is able to take evidence on oath, its findings, whatever they may be, will not have the weight in the country which they ought to have. If there is anything wrong—I do not say for a moment that there is—it should be probed to the bottom, and I venture to appeal to the Leader of the House to accede to the request which has been made by the hon. Member who has just sat down.

Mr. BONAR LAW: I think hon. Members will feel that I have tried to meet their wishes, and give them full weight. I remember that precisely the same kind of discussion took place with regard to another Committee of the same kind, and I am sure that the difficulty suggested was not found to occur in practice. At the same time, I have no objection to what is suggested, if it can be arranged; and if the House will leave it in that way, I will consult with my right hon. Friend the Attorney-General as to what difficulties there are in the way, and also as to whether it would not be possible
to pass with the same facility a short general statute dealing with the matter.

Captain LOSEBY: I beg to thank the right hon. Gentleman, and to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Sir D. MACLEAN: Might I, with your permission, Mr. Speaker, ask the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House whether at this late hour he proposes to go on with the next Order, which is the question of the railway agreements? I do not think, if my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport undertakes that duty at 5 minutes past 10, he can very well do justice to himself or to his subject under 40 or 50 minutes, and we should not start to-morrow under anything like the same favourable conditions.

Mr. BONAR LAW: Of course, one does not like to lose any Government time, but I am inclined to agree with my right hon. Friend that it is undesirable to take this Order to-night, particularly in view of the fact that it is necessary to take the Unemployment Insurance Bill to-morrow. It would be obviously still more inconvenient if my right hon. Friend made his speech to-night, and we went on with the discussion the day after to-morrow.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

UNEMPLOYMENT INSUKANCE [MONEY].

Committee to consider of authorising the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of contributions towards unemployment benefit and of sums necessary for defraying the cost of providing additional benefits for certain persons formerly engaged in War service and of authorising the Treasury to make advances out of the Consolidated Fund and to borrow money for such advances by the issue of such securities as the Treasury think proper, the principal of and interest on such securities to be charged on and payable out of the Consolidated Fund, in pursuance of any Act of the present Session relating to unemployment—(King's Recommendation signified)—To-morrow.—[Lord E. Talbot.]

The Government Orders were read, and postponed.

IRELAND.

"WEEKLY SUMMARY."

Motion made, and Question proposed. "That this House do now adjourn."—[Lord Edmund Talbot.]

The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Colonel Sir Hamar Greenwood): I rise to say a few words of personal explanation and apology in reference to something that I said yesterday. During the course of the Debate yesterday in good faith I quoted from a French newspaper, namely, La Nouvelliste, printed at Rennes in Brittany, dated 13th January, which contained a map of what are called English devastations in Ireland. It is an accurate map as issued by certain persons here in England. I quoted from the letterpress of this newspaper which was signed "M. Masterman, former Minister of the Asquith Cabinet." I understand that the right hon. Gentleman, Mr. Masterman, denies ever having written this, said it, or actually seen the map. This has just recently come to my notice—Mr. Masterman's denial—and I take this first opportunity of expressing my profound regret for using this quotation, and in accusing Mr. Masterman and the right hon. Gentleman, the Member for Paisley, of being parties to its issue abroad. The position in Ireland is grave enough as nobody knows better than I do. I hope the House will acquit me of any desire to involve in that great issue any question of personality, and I take this the first opportunity of apologising, and of withdrawing unqualifiedly anything I said in reference to this yesterday.

Sir D. MACLEAN: I am sure Mr. Masterman and also my right hon Friend the Member for Paisley will appreciate to the full the apology which my right hon. Friend has just made. Mr. Master-man himself telephoned me about a couple of hours ago on this matter, and I had no opportunity at all of communicating to my right hon. Friend what Mr. Masterman said to me. But he, in the most unqualified manner, denied he was either directly or indirectly connected in any way with the article in the paper to which my right hon. Friend has just referred. I would also add this: that he had made inquiries also at the Liberal Publications Department, and they had nothing whatever, directly or indirectly, to do with the publication on the Con-
tinent to which my right hon. Friend refers. I will only say this, while accepting in the letter and in the spirit what my right hon. Friend has said, I do hope that he will exercise all due care in future, and if he has charges of this kind to make I am certain he, with his goodwill and desire to be fair, before he makes charges of that kind, will make some inquiry to see whether there is any ground for them.

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Might I add one word on this matter? I have been accused in the same way of doing this sort of thing. We are all very glad the right hon. Gentleman has seen his way to make this apology. I receive almost daily communications anonymously of a publication called the "Irish Summary," which comes from Sinn Fein sources. I never accept anything that appears in those summaries without taking steps to verify it. Everything we say here is repeated abroad. This House is a sounding-board, and whatever is said on either side of the Table gets printed in larger prominence in foreign papers than in this country. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will realise that we understand that when we speak here we speak with a great sense of responsibility. The very last thing we desire to do is to weaken in any way the prestige of this country abroad. But we feel we are serving the best interests of our country in the long run in criticising what is contrary to its ancient traditions in Ireland.

Mr. LYLE-SAMUEL: In view of the fact that reference has been made to the Debate of yesterday, may I say that in last week's edition of the "Weekly Summary" there is a statement that those opposed to the Government policy admit the right to murder. The Chief Secretary last night, with very little restraint, accused those who are at present in opposition to his policy of condoning and inciting to murder, and I should like to have from the Chief Secretary, in view of the repudiation of every Member on this side of the House of any sympathy whatsoever with murder, an apology for that statement in the "Weekly Summary." which may have escaped his own personal notice. I would like him to apologise for suggesting that we are in any way or in any degree in agreement with the policy of murder.

Sir H. GREENWOOD: I wish to make it clear that I made no accusation against anyone's personal honour or sincerity in this matter. My point was that certain speeches or parts of speeches gave encouragement to enemies of this country. I do not think that is a question for apology. I repeat what I said, that Irish matters are too grave for personalities, and if I have tried to score a point by personalities I profoundly regret it.

Major MACKENZIE WOOD: The question is quite clear. I have here the "Weekly Summary," and it states definitely that the opponents of the Government stand for the right to murder. This is the publication which is sent out by the right hon. Gentleman. It is paid for out of public funds, and it is put down here in black and white without any kind of qualification whatsoever. I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he ever held and still believes that the opponents of the Government stand for the right to murder.

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is not quite fairly quoting. My attention has been called to this particular paragraph, but it would be better if the hon. Member would read the whole of it. It seemed to me that the particular sentence refers only to what is actually going on in Ireland at the present moment—the campaign carried on by the Sinn Feiners.

Major WOOD: I cannot accept the interpretation which is put upon it, and if it is necessary I will read the whole paragraph, and I will leave it for the House to say whether or not I am right in the interpretation which I have put upon it. It is longer than I should like to but it seems to me I am compelled to do it now. It is headed:

BALLOT OR BULLET?—THE IRISH 'PHOBLEM.'

"The Government is receiving advice from all quarters on the 'problem' of Irish affairs. One group of individuals declare that the only solution of the problem is to give the country up to the criminals who are seeking to reduce it to anarchy. Another group of individuals assert that if a nebulous form of Government which they, without defining, call 'Dominion Home Rule,' were established, the murderers would cease to murder. Yet a third group hold that the Government should meet the representatives of the Republic and discuss peace terms. These counsellors willfully misunderstand the
Irish 'problem.' The Irish 'problem' has next to nothing to do with politics. Politics is the stalking horse behind which the masked murderer lurks. The Government is opposing murder. The Government is doing its duty to the nation and to the Empire in refusing to allow a gang of cutthroats to dictate to the enlightened democracy, from which the Government derives its power. The Government stands for constitutionalism and the Home Rule Act. The opponents of the Government stand for the right to murder. In that confrontation is the real issue. Does Ireland stand for the ballot or the bullet as a political method? The Government stands for the ballot. If Ireland stands for the bullet, so much the worse for Ireland. Her road to reason may be a long and bitter one."

That is the whole paragraph to which I referred, and I call the House and the country to witness that there is only one interpretation of that particular phrase in that particular paragraph, and that is that the opponents of the Government in this House, and out of it, do stand for the right to murder. It is a most diabolical charge for any Minister of the Crown to hurl at his political opponents, and, say what the right hon. Gentleman may, there is no doubt that that is the interpretation which will be put upon it by any impartial judge, and I am sorry to see the right hon. Gentleman neglecting the first opportunity that has been given him, after this has been brought to his notice, of apologising to the House and the country.

Mr. THOMAS: The House generally will appreciate the action of the Chief Secretary, but I am sure they will regret that he did not avail himself of a bigger House to make his apology. At the same time, now that the matter is raised, I hope his colleagues will observe what he has stated to-night in that frank, open way, and will not say to those who are appealing for support in election addresses something which has now been repudiated by the Chief Secretary. In other words, I hope that Cabinet Ministers seeking re-election will not restate what the right hon. Gentleman has practically apologised for to-night.

Sir H. GREENWOOD: I have not seen this article, but I have had the benefit of hearing it read, and, of course, so far as I am concerned, I hope it is not necessary for me to say that I do not for a moment suggest, nor do I feel, that the interpretation that has been placed upon it by the hon. and gallant Member is correct. The
"Weekly Summary" has been issued to the police at a time when it is difficult for them to keep in touch with the central police organisation in Ireland. There is no intention of using this for political propaganda against the opponents of the Government. The original intention was, and the intention now is, to use it to hearten up these men in the very difficult task they have to perform. I regret that there is anything in the Summary, or that there ever has been in the Summary, anything that could bear an interpretation of personal offensiveness such as the hon. and gallant Member has placed upon it.

Sir D. MACLEAN: rose—

Mr. SPEAKER: The right hon. Gentleman has spoken once.

Lord R. CECIL: I am glad the right hon. Gentleman has seen fit—we all expected it of him—the moment when his attention was drawn to the actual words used in this "Weekly Summary," to withdraw them and express his regret. I can-
not see that the words were open to any other possible interpretation than the interpretation which my hon. and gallant Friend has put on them. I cannot but feel that Members of this House have a considerable right to complain that a document issued by a Government Department, and at the public expense, should be so carelessly worded, to put it mildly, as to be capable of conveying an interpretation of that kind. I very earnestly hope that the right hon. Gentleman will give orders to whoever is responsible for the production of this paper to be more careful in future.

Mr. KELLY: It is somewhat ominous that the very first week that the "Weekly Summary" has been placed in the hands of Members of this House the Chief Secretary has had to make an explanation and to express regret. I hope, that that will be a warning to the editors of such a paper.

Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-three Minutes after Ten o'clock.